The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Tunneling down

    Witnessing yet another fantabulous episode in the long-running sitcom (let’s title it ‘Morbid Obsession’) was at once exhilarating, raucously hilarious and foreboding. Hardball achieved the odd feat of shedding tears of joy and sorrow all at once. Don’t ask how he pulled off such dexterous feat because it is beyond description; the only remedy is to attune oneself to the narrative of the series.

    Last Thursday, July 4, 2013, a certain Prince Felix Obuah, a mobile, tactile installation (life follows art sometimes you know) in the PDP universe, Rivers State branch, raised his game and upped his profile in infamy. A stringed underling in the ruling party, call him State Chairman, he broke ranks and transported his self unto the presence of the President of the Federal Republic right in his Court, Aso Rock Villa, Abuja. Prince Obuah led a delegation of the party chieftains of his state to ‘solidarise’ with the president. It seems a grand reversal of roles and starkly anomalous that in a state endowed materially, historically and politically, a certain Prince Obuah would lead and speak for the likes of Peter Odili, Sergeant Awuse, Chibudom Nwuche, Austin Opara, Abiye Sekibo, Lee Maeba, to name a few, to the Villa.

    Is this a new low or a new high? Is this the new, emerging PDP; the shape of the party to come? Is this the rise of the unknown quantities and underlings? Is it the rule of the tail or the thumb? Now that this Obuah fellow has broken the floodgate, the other state chairmen must take their cues quickly and their turns immediately to lead their state chapters (with their governors and other leaders in tow) to the Villa. The challenge of any other state chairman however, will be whether he will be able to match Obuah’s performance before the president. Obuah, it seems, was fully prepared and well rehearsed with a speech tucked in his pocket. Like a minnow in the presence of a barracuda, he threw in everything in the mix and could have driven home his point with Ahahowaian back-flips if necessary.

    He played the worm first by wriggling through the soft side of the president. You are our son in-law and Rivers State should be your home of comfort, he declared. They had just received their sister, the president’s wife and by the joy and contentment she exuded, it was evident that he was a dependable and loving husband she a dutiful and loving wife. Wow! Obuah dug in: they the political leaders of PDP in the state support the Transformation Agenda, they support the president and would do anything to make sure he sleeps with two eyes closed.

    Then like Ali Baba, he reached for the dagger and aimed at the jugular of the enemy: “We are pained and our heart bleeds today that the main champion of opposition in the country against Mr. President is Governor Rotimi Amaechi.

    “We do not know what has come over the young man. Is it that he wants to destabilise the PDP before his eventual movement to his new party, having been handed over the ACN/CPC structure in Rivers State.”

    Great performance and “Mr. President” bit into the ‘bait’ hook, line and sinker, he immediately railed against “somebody who is in a political party and his faith is in another party…” What an orchestra of dirges, drawing and redrawing of battle lines as fresh scenes are played out in the running drama, we have titled, Morbid Obsession. Hardball can’t figure out why he uncannily tends to liken Obuah as some kind of burrow rabbit tunneling into the ground.

    On a last note, Obuah sounds like and reminds of a burrowing rabbit tunneling down into the ground.

  • Budget brouhaha

    If a country’s budget is in a mess, it is straight, simple logic that the country’s economy, if not the entire polity, could become one stretch of quagmire. Seventh month of the year yet the country’s most important working document, 2013 Appropriation Act, is dog-eared and in tatters. Not from handling it in the bid to diligently carry out its legitimate mandate, but from unyielding contentions and bare-faced chicanery. This all-important document is being wizened not in order to determine the fine points and delicate nuances of its requirements for the utmost good of the citizenry, no. It’s all about personal interests, turf fights between the executive and the legislature.

    The budget, the budget, it’s the budget, stupid. How we long for the day when we will get a grip on the federal budget once again. Most state budgets we have lost forever as they are disbursed from the shirt pockets of the big men. Local government budgets are long dead and interred thanks to the undertakers of the local council system. The federal budget, therefore, represents the last frontiers of budgeting in this vast, receding polity. Let’s save the budgeting system, if only to help our children learn the nebulous, arcane art of planning, projecting, juxtaposing, virements, project execution, monitoring and implementation.

    But budgeting has become a dying art in Nigeria and the 2013 budget is in utter ruins. By the time the 2013 Appropriation Act eventually emerged from the National Assembly (NASS) early in the year, it was already half dead hanging only on life support. For about a month, the President would not accent to it. When he eventually did, it was a conditional accent. Don’t ask Hardball if he appended half of his signature on it but he promised to return it to NASS. A few weeks later, on March 14, precisely, President Goodluck Jonathan returned the Act to the NASS. On June 26, the NASS threw it back at him. Ding, dong, like ping, pong our budget goes.

    The first tragedy here is that this matter is as complicated as the budget itself to the point that Hardball cannot help you to unravel it (sorry). The lesser tragedy (since we are entranced in delirious ignorance) is that they are playing ping-pong with your life. The final tragedy is that since they have befuddled our lives so much, that puts them at liberty to brand us ignoramuses who cannot understand basic economics and there ends the matter till the next season of (budget madness).

    As it stands, two quarters have passed yet we don’t know how much of the budget has been actualised. The NASS accuses the executives of seeking to amend an already approved budget instead of sending in a supplementary. The executives in turn insist NASS is balking so much on the matter because it had not released a N100 billion constituency projects cash. For your information, our representatives are passionately fighting to execute about 469 capital projects in constituencies across Nigeria for our edification. Without being prompted, they insist they will have no hand in the projects since the Ministry of Special Duties would handle them. And they are thoroughly piqued that the executives through the instrumentality of the Finance Minister who doubles as the Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy (CME) is sitting on their project cash (sorry on the project cash). Where in our constitution is this position of the CME, some have asked angrily?

    Don’t ask me if I have seen a constituency project before in my constituency. You could jolly well count your teeth with your tongue. Don’t ask me if the Ministry of Special Duties is the new Ministry of Works and whether it has the capacity to execute 469 projects across Nigeria. Please ask no more questions because I am as confounded as you are. Please let’s move forward…it is at times like this that you appreciate the strictly Nigerian idea of moving forward.

  • Why is Salisu Buhari’s chicken always crossing the road?

    What shall we Nigerians do with a certain fellow called Salisu Buhari? Or to put it in a better perspective, what would the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), do without this chap, Salisu Buhari (SB)? For those who were too young in 1999 or who may have forgotten, SB was the golden–haired boy of Nigeria’s re-born democracy in 1999 when he shot into the political scene like a bold, bright meteor. Just in his 20s (but claimed to be older), suffused with astounding military contracts money and the right contacts in the hegemonic circles of the North, SB became a member of the House of Representatives in the new Republic.

    If only he had tempered his ambition and remained just an ordinary lawmaker of the Federal Republic, he probably would have risen to be a kingpin in the PDP firmament, perhaps in line to be president today or something higher if ever there was such. None of us would have been wiser for it after all we have been afflicted with worse afflictions (pardon me). But SB was a lion, osina nwata buru ogaranya, the tenderloin who made good real good, if you would allow me to put it that way. A military leg man and carpetbagger; he pitched for the top job.

    It was the era of innocence when democracy was defined in salubrious officers’ mess and even dingy mammy markets depending on the taste bud of your military brass. SB – small boy who swims in big waters, he dove for the big prize: he wanted to be the Honorable Speaker of the new born 3rd Republic of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And pronto, SB was Speaker. But before you could say “Mr. Speaker Sir”, there was trouble in the House. You know the ancient saying that when a deity begins to give its people too much trouble, they simply ‘undeify’ it by revealing the tree with which they had carved it. Our Honorable Speaker, Salisu Buhari had hardly assumed his stool when it ‘came out’ that he was not the person he claimed he was, he did not go to the schools he forswore to have gone, he was not the age he filled out in forms and SB did not do some of the noble things he may have ascribed to his name. SB was a poseur. So was the party, one would argue but then he was caught out.

    Thus the concept and reality of a Hon. Speaker Salisu Buhari became chimerical. His classmates at King’s College, Lagos could not work out the alchemy of an age mate ‘acquiring’ more age ahead of them. They could understand SB acquiring more mansions and machines. It also turned out that he did not school at Toronto University, Canada which he claimed. He was convicted and he went in for it. He was the first casualty of a rambunctious new age.

    But just before you could say EX-CONVICT, SB was ‘slammed’ a presidential pardon by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo. Of course SB was party’s cash machine and no ill dares befall him. Obasanjo went ahead to make him chairman of an education parastatal and in spite of Nigerians shouting themselves hoarse, he never budged. The PDP government has thrown the Salisu Buhari mud at Nigerians once again. SB has just been made a member of the Governing Council of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. What grim humour, what dark, mirthless offering? Why would SB’s chicken always want to cross the express road you ask?

    The Salisu Buhari affair is a metaphor for the manner PDP governs Nigeria – insensitive, unthinking and unconscionable. This is how our agencies are filled with nincompoops and scallywags. If SB must get board appointments why not in less opprobrious entities; and what, may we ask would PDP make SB next, a vice chancellor?

  • Well done gallant Eagles

    Well done gallant Eagles

    If  there was any doubt that football is fast taking over from religion as the new opium of the masses, the just ended Confederation Cup in Brazil should dispel such. It was as if glorious World Cup football tournament was here again but with fewer countries participating. Just eight countries, the best from each continent; call it mini world cup if you would but it was only a dress rehearsal for the main show coming up also in Brazil next year. The world has just reveled in a fiesta of enthralling football nonetheless.

    On display was the best of Europe as represented by Spain and Italy, the best of the Americas with Uruguay and Brazil, the best of Asia, Japan; the best of North America, Mexico; Tahiti stood in for the Oceania while Nigeria, the African champion hoisted the continent’s flag. It was boon for lovers of the round leather game with Tahiti seeming to provide the comic relief having been suffused with goals – garnering 24 in only three matches. But the tiny island country of 178,000 people was too happy to be at the world stage under global klieg lights for the first time to give a damn. The team made up of physical education teachers and artisans was obviously having a good time, hearty and happy even as it amassed baskets full of goals. Such was the spectacle that when they got the goal against the Super Eagles, their only goal of the tournament, they jubilated as if they won the cup. It could well have been a trophy for running around with giants and putting one behind the mighty Super Eagles which paraded illustrious football superstars is a feat by itself.

    But of course, not Tahiti, but Brazil that staged the show also lifted the cup in a grand style. In an anticlimax of a finale Brazil switched on a beautiful performance against European and world champions, Spain to snatch the diadem. Brazil’s young team completely subdued and exposed the seemingly indomitable Spanish armada, exponents of the exotic tiki-taka brand of football. This must be a foretaste of what to expect next year when the world converge once again in that football grove known as Brazil for the real thing: the World Cup. You must have noticed especially, a new star in the galaxy called Neymar!

    But our gallant Super Eagles was there, played three matches, won one and lost two. Though we did not scale the first round, it was a good outing for the national team with the added advantage of encountering quality teams like Uruguay and Spain. While the team drubbed Tahiti six to one after a troubled transit to the tournament (no thanks to the shoddy ways of the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF), they lost to Uruguay and Spain but to keen-eyed footballers, they played good football, they played like African champions. As Coach Stephen Keshi said, they were defeated but not disgraced.

    They were plagued by poor administrative support and injury: key players like Victor Moses, Emmanuel Emenike, Ogenyi Onazi and Kenneth Omeruo (in the last match). Had we these regulars, so much would have been different. What Nigerians must take away from the Confederation Cup is that Keshi’s team is taking shape quite well. Positions are beginning to solidify. Not in the last few years could Nigerians see a clear picture of their national team. The ‘technocrats’ at the Glass House must allow Keshi to complete the work he has started. Talk of vetting his selection now would amount to throwing spanner in the works; they want to impose players on the coach. Have you ever heard that a bunch of people sit somewhere and vet the team list of a Scolari, Del Bosque, etc? It is unthinkable. Coaches are employed to swim or sink. This Eagles will fly yet.

     

  • While Jang was away

    Plateau State has no doubt become Nigeria’s killing field. Hardly any day passes without news of bloodbath in one part of the state or the other. The way they have kept at it relentlessly for about ten years, you would think that the place is populated by savages. But no matter how blood-drenched the once-beautiful table land has become, every single life cut down needs to be accounted for and accorded a proper rite of passage. But not anymore in Plateau State; they have become blood weary. Mass slaughter and counter slaughter have become something of a way of life and nobody seems to care anymore.

    Last Thursday, when Governor Jonah Jang was busy in Abuja leading his renegade team of governors to some worthless, politically-motivated dinner in Aso Rock, his enclave was burning. Some blood-thirsty marauders suspected to be Fulani cattle herdsmen invaded Langtang South Local Government Area of the state and wreaked havoc on the land to their heart’s content. For hours, they operated unhindered and unchallenged as if Nigeria was an ungoverned jungle; killing, maiming and razing houses. The savages had come on bikes and were said to have chased down even escapees dealing them gruesome death blows as if they were wild animals. About 32 dead bodies were counted when the dust settled.

    According to report, chairman of the Provincial Church Council of COCIN, Rev. Nandip Miri, lost his aged father and brother in the attack. While the chairman, Management Committee for Langtang LGA, Mr. Narman Darko was said to have confirmed the death of 32 people and the torching of about 100 houses in three villages. Some of those killed were said to be students writing the National Examinations Council (NECO) exams.

    It is true that carnages of this magnitude have become commonplace in Plateau State but it still does not exonerate the chief security officer’s dereliction of duty in carousing in Abuja and pretending to be chairman of the inconsequential Nigerian Governor’s Forum (NGF) while his state is bedeviled by one of the worst fratricidal crises to happen in Nigeria since the end of the civil war. The pattern of violence has been long defined to the point of predictability. In a few days’ time, there is bound to be a reprisal attack of mind-numbing magnitude – on and on, the orgy of bloodletting has continued. How could a large gang of armed bandits move into a community and attack for hours on end without the state’s security agencies rousing from slumber?

    Governor Jang has failed hopelessly in dealing with the problem. In fact, after six years in the saddle, he seems to now live in denial if not abeyance, hoping the killings would stop or that the press would get tired of reporting them just the way he has deadened his conscience over them. It is a shame that people seek positions for which they have no clue about the inherent responsibilities. As far as Jang is concerned, there is no solution to the ‘complex’ problem scourging his domain; or on the other hand, he has escaped into the nether regions of effete helplessness.

    This column wonders how a man who is assailed by such soul-searing problem as we have in Plateau State would have the time or resource to engage in the banality known as NGF. What is Mr. Jang thinking of? It is either he is extremely soulless, heartless or both. And as for the Federal Government’s attitude to the blood count on the plateau, we say hmmn!

     

  • Jona, Ama, the hunchback and the witchdoctor – a fable

    Once upon a time, when Hardball was not born, the fable goes that a certain hunchback, being weary of backing his life’s burden like a rusack, started to seek a cure for his condition. He had travelled the length and breadth of the land to no avail until he met this wily witchdoctor. Upon diagnosis, he opined that the hunch was not ordinary, that the mortal baggage was the result of the sin of his fathers now stacked on his back by the gods as a living testimony. There was antidote, of course, but precedent upon the condition that unlike his father, he was a good man.

    I am a man of honour, he said promptly, you will find corroboration in the entire clan and beyond, he said frantically. Hold your peace, the medicine man said gently, the gods of the land do not seek corroboration they are the story, from the beginning to the end. Was it not your fathers to the fifth generation who gathered this evil load you now have to lug about? Why is it your lot to carry it? Though you look innocent and benign, would you be one of those who have a good face and dark heart? Would you kill in the bush and dash to the foot path and ask who has killed? If you are not double-faced, do you forgive? Are you low and mean-spirited like a rapscallion?

    You know the gods would forgive anything, even murder and serial adultery (which by the way has grown to a scourge around here), but not an unforgiving nature and meanness of heart. Not to forget is to play god and no man is god and our gods abhor any man playing god. To be mean and ungracious is to assume eternity. Only god is eternal and man, miserable man, will always come and go like the seasons. What is man to go to bed with grudges, with bitterness and ill-will towards another man? Who does he think stir him back to life each day? Ah, man! Fleeting breath, morning dew, blooming flower that exfoliates in splendor and majesty only when its end is nigh!

    Anyway, never mind the digression, I am no god myself, I only bear message. I will give you antidote to your hump but there is a caveat: if you are not the good man you pose to be, you will end up suffering double jeopardy because as you cure your hunch back, your stomach will protrude until… so do you still want the herbs? Yes indeed I want the herbs, the hunchback replied, the whole village world can attest to my obvious good nature. Well then, replied the witchdoctor, here you are, take this bunch of herbs, warm it in an earthen pot and dab three times on your back in the morning and at night. Do it for seven days and present yourself let us see whether you are as much a good man, as you claim.

    Hunchy promptly set about his treatment, but he had a ‘lump’ in his heart. Ten years ago a dainty young man had made off to town with the only woman that ever flashed him a hearty smile. He had never lived it down. The ‘sore’ had festered in his heart all these years and he would harm the young man the instant he sets his eyes on him. He is convinced he has justification to retaliate against this impudent young man. He kept soothing his back with warm herb. By the third day he could feel enormous relieve on his back … but his stomach has become discomfiting. By the fifth day he could barely rise to his feet… the hunchback’s troubles it seemed, had been brought forward. He could never present his self to the medicine man. Never again… MORAL: be quick to forgive, shake hands, make up and move on because you are not god.

  • PDP: People Doodling (and) Prattling

    PDP: People Doodling (and) Prattling

    In the light of its current tomfoolery and relentless assault on the sensibilities of the average Nigerian out there, Hardball is tempted to get into the ring of infamy with our dear PDP. Thoroughly troubled by this irredeemable crew, Hardball is of the mind to call for entries in a creative competition to find a most fitting interpretation to the abbreviation, PDP. People Doodling and Prattling is Hardball’s modest effort but in the hands of creative heads, there is a limitless, even magical world of coinages to be trawled. Yes we have heard: People Destroying People; the famous Papa Deceiving Pikin and People Draining the Public and more.

    But this competition, if we get round to it, would be about the bizarre and hilarious dissipations of the so-called ruling (ruining) party in Nigeria. One could even call for a potpourri of jokes, cartoons and illustrations. Because the party has become a joke or if you like, a long running comedy strip. It would be interesting to see how much material our ever witty populace may be able to mine from PDP’s reservoir of ribaldry.

    Any discerning Nigerian would have noticed the endless drama that these people, who are supposed to be ruling us have been getting into since 1999. They are like a people under a spell that ensures that nothing ever goes right. Every simple action is steeped in intrigues and rancor, for instance, right from inception, almost every national party chairman had been entangled in a web of intrigues and subterfuge no sooner he is installed. Result: hardly any ever spent his full term before he is tossed out.

    This curse that defies antidote has continued to plague PDP till today. The current national chairman who was installed the other day, has never been able to set his glass down after a drink of water, as the saying goes. It has all become like children playing silly hide and seek. Here are samplers of some PDP big headlines in some national newspapers this month: “PDP govs in fresh move against Tukur”; “Tukur set to battle Anenih”; “PDP crisis: Governors shun Tukur’s son’s wedding”; “Anxiety over Tukur, others”; “PDP crisis: I won’t resign as chairman, says Tukur”; “Stakeholders ask Tukur to go”; “Tukur must stay – Jonathan”; “PDP govs renew plot to remove Tukur”; “PDP govs set to reconcile Jonathan, Amaechi”, on and on. This is the life of PDP: endless streaming of banalities; like the blabbing of brain-dead people.

    This is the life of PDP, the party ruling Nigeria. This is the life PDP has bequeathed Nigeria. This is why we are the way we are, the country is not being governed, it is rather being ravaged by a savage clan. If you expect that someday, PDP the largest party in Africa would brainstorm on the killer corruption in the country or the unemployment that has worsted our youths, not to mention the power jinx the party has locked us into since 1999, perish the thought. PDP does not discuss progress; it does not even discuss power. What then does it engage in? Endless scheming to hang on to power at all cost. They are a people doodling and prattling: they are engaged in endless activities without getting anything done and they are talking so much yet they say nothing to the people. Who will save Nigeria from these doodlers?

  • Introducing: Jangian lexicon

    Introducing: Jangian lexicon

    My people had an ancient but tricky saying which when interpreted, has two meanings: the one literal and the other metaphorical. Wise, doughty, old people, they say that when a matter becomes too troublous and defies all antidotes, we must go ahead and point at it. But this is the literal part of it; those sages didn’t mouth banalities like this did they? They were actually saying that when a spirit (a malevolent spirit, of course) starts acting up, the community would ‘elect to point at it’. Hardball has elected to point one grubby, little, finger at the ongoing Jangian comedy.

    There you go; bet you missed that. Governor Jonah Jang (JJ) as we all know has undergone a rather cataclysmic unraveling since May 24, 2013 when 35 governors in Nigeria held an election which he and 15 of his colleagues insist they won. If they had left it at that and gone home quietly to their tricky tasks of running small portions of this ‘animal’ kingdom, we would have ignored that episode as a minor brain-box blip of an overheated tokunbo car. But Jang and the gang are dressed for a dirty fight. They are dead to their cause or dead serious if you like. It was as if Jang was looking for an opportunity to run away from his blighted Plateau State (do you blame him?). He has become the governor of the Nigerian Governor’s Forum (NGF) more or less; having relocated to Abuja where he hurriedly set up a secretariat of the renegade NGF, convened several meetings, led his presidential posse to the seat of the President perhaps for presidential blessing for a job well done.

    Why retired General Jang would elect to be the gossamer in another man’s rubber device is not the concern of Hardball here. He is rather keen on establishing some new entries into Nigeria’s complex political lexicography. Thus if a man elects to make himself a foot mat in the corridors of power, we can caution him for being jangian. Then if a politician begins to exhibit some way out weird behaviour like going to court to contest an election we all know he clearly lost, we can say he has become jangrened (that is gangrene has set into his folly!). If your friend or associate goes off the hook and you cannot put a handle on him anymore, you can describe him as having gone jangoid. Lastly, you could call someone a bloody jango when he acts like a political bingo, a popinjay or a stringed marionette.

    But why is Hardball particularly provoked to elect to point to this jang gremlin besetting the polity? Here: recently, the 36 states’ commissioners of finance had worked out on Yerima Ngama, the Minister of State, Finance, who oversees the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC). An outstanding of N160 billion had been hanging since February and the Federal Government would play pranks and hee-haw thus the revolt by the commissioners and subsequent stalemate. Major constitutional and fiscal crises loomed. Danger was clear and present thus the Federal Government rushed to clear its mess. It released the fund which belongs to the common purse in the first place and shared it. Everybody was happy and every thing was normal once again.

    But not for Jang who seems to have developed fervour for relentless peregrinations. He swiftly claimed credit for the release of the outstanding allocations. According to a national newspaper, “Jang said he was able to achieve this by using diplomatic means to convince President Goodluck Jonathan on the need to release the funds when his faction of the forum (NGF) met with the president a few days ago.”

    Even illiterates know well enough that the federation revenues are not the property of the president’s to keep, withhold or release. Hardball can therefore, find no word anywhere to describe Governor Jang’s statement than to call it jangoid. And Hardball drops a tear for the good people of Plateau State if this is what they’ve had to put up with for so long

  • Leap of faith

    Imagine a scenario where you left your family or host to catch a late evening flight. You had indeed boarded the flight and made the last calls to say your safe trips and good nights. Three hours later, you are not at your destination but back where you took off from. You had been on a flight to nowhere; you had roamed the skies like a bird of the night and made what is known as ‘air return’ in aviation register. This was the fate of an Arik Airline flight which emanated from Abuja to Uyo last Friday.

    Hardball could not get a special device to get on that plane with those passengers (and I say just as well) but invoking the power of empathy, one can feel their trauma. Nothing makes a man pray more fervently, reflect deeper or stay sober better than a troubled flight. This flight, as reported, was remarkably troublous. Flight W3 533 had left Abuja at about 7.00 pm for Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, only to make a u-turn and return to Abuja two hours later with the same passengers on board.

    The story really is that this flight was plagued by a peculiarly Nigerian malaise and the life of those hapless 50 passengers and crew was put in jeopardy. As the report goes in one national newspaper, the pilot was on the verge of lowering the bird on the runway of Ibom Airport but had to “swiftly abort landing following a power outage at the airport.” As a result of the time-lag before the plane made it back to Abuja, it is suggested that it must have hovered for sometime perhaps hoping the airport would be relit so that it would eventually land. Apparently, the power outage was not restored for quite a while so it shuttled back to Abuja.

    Power outages at our airports have almost become the norm these days. Not even our international ports are spared. On Saturday, April 21, 2012, a British Airways flight could not land at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja. It had to hover for about two hours before it eventually landed; there was blackout at Nigeria’s premier entry point for two hours! What holds a novelty and confounds even Hardball is whether there is a possibility of an outage as the plane approached the landing stretch. What about the control tower? Though Nigeria has become a strange land where strange occurrences happen daily, this one is a new high or low (depending on where you stand or your altitude).

    It was reported that the plane had ‘swiftly aborted landing’, meaning that it took off abruptly in the middle of attempting to land. One will need to interrogate aviation experts as to the dexterity and mental acuity a pilot requires to achieve this seeming feat. Even a bird executing this stunt has to be sure of its state of fitness lest it does injury to its wings. It cannot be a frequent occurrence in the aviation world can it? What was the state of the passengers while this was going on? Imagine what the various announcements would be: they would have to announce the brace up for landing in Uyo; then the sudden aborted landing and swift take-off, the hovering, the return journey and re-landing in Abuja.

    What a merry-go-round, what wasted time, resources and efforts and what trauma. If you are listening to find out when someone would take responsibility for that extreme dereliction of duty, you will listen long. If you think anyone would be publicly upbraided for almost wasting the lives of those passengers; if only to send a strong message to other errant staff, it won’t happen. Flying in Nigeria remains a leap of faith isn’t it?

     

  • A factory is a factory

    Late last week, the State director of the Directorate of State Security (DSS) in one of the Southeast States made yet another discovery of a baby factory. He arrested a medical doctor who was running a foundation that keeps girls and even women who apparently make babies for a living. The doctor was of course arrested and according to the DSS, he will face prosecution.

    Hardball, using his special device, listened in to the proceedings of the interrogation of the doctor: Why have you, a trained medical doctor, decided to delve into this heinous and immoral act? The doctor delved into a long, winding explanation to the effect that: See officer, this is between us and I am talking to you as a friend and brother. I will give you the low down because I have not committed any offence against the law. I am only helping these people and helping myself too.

    He continues, I have left medical school for nearly two decades now and I could not make any head way. Even when I set up my own hospital, nothing tangible was coming in because of our crushing operating environment, even the little you make goes to overhead like diesel and generator repairs. Then the local herbs vendors took over as more people patronize them and fewer still came to the hospital. You remember we used to make up with what is popularly called D&C or abortion, but that one too was not forthcoming. We later found out that some smart people now warehouse pregnant young girls, nurse them to delivery and buy the baby off them. They found that babies are in high demand all over the world. In fact new born babies are the hottest merchandise you can ever have today.

    Between us, this business is far bigger than you know and new methods are devised daily. It is like drug peddling, the money in it is too tempting so it is not going to stop soon. But one point you must realise is that some of these pregnancies could have been flushed out with the attendant complications and even deaths because young girls who get mistakenly pregnant in our society are treated like taboo, nobody cares for them; not even the government that is shouting about baby factory.

    But the reality today my brother is that a factory is a factory o. Things are so difficult in Nigeria today, especially in the hinterland that any factory at all will help. You must have noticed that there were even women, 35 to 39 years old women in my foundation (please don’t call it factory again) when your men came. Some of them are widows. Do you think I forced them to come; they need the money. Some of them have not touched N50,000 in their entire lifes. In fact some of them will not be able to count N100,000 if you hand it to them, they can even go crazy if they see such money.

    So when you people shout baby factory, baby factory, we just laugh at you because you do not know the good we are doing the society. We are saving new born babies, we are giving succor to traumatised young girls, we are providing ‘employment’ for virile young men who could have turned to kidnapping or robbery. By the way, when was the last time any government opened a factory in the Southeast? All these teeming youths how are you going to engage them? When was the last time you saw any economic activity in any local government around here?

    You see officer, this so-called baby factory is just the symptom of a dying society. Even if you manage to close down all the baby factories around here (which is impossible) other kinds of factories will spring up. As they say, nature abhors vacuum. When a few people cart away funds meant for the generality, the generality will have to make a way for themselves…He went on and on.

    Officer was short for words just as Hardball, the eavesdropper, was dumbfounded.