The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Fubara: Not the best of times

    Fubara: Not the best of times

    The Court of Appeal yesterday affirmed the voiding of the N800 billion Rivers’ 2024 Appropriation Act, passed by a five-member Rivers State House of Assembly.  So, it’s not the best of times for embattled Governor Siminalayi Fubara.

    Only on October 5, he rammed through a controversial local government poll.  On that, however, neither him, the ingrate protégée, nor the mercurial Nyesom Wike, Fubara’s combative benefactor-turned-malefactor, was a saint in that controversial poll. 

    Fubara pushed his authority as elected governor.  Wike was anxious to preserve the PDP “structure” he used to romp Fubara, a minority riverine Ijaw, into Rivers power.  Each had to do what each had to do!

    Still, it was a hysteric Fubara belching reckless statements in the passion of the moment: naming a judge and dubbing his verdict “fraudulent” because he didn’t like it; and virtually drawing the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) into the Wike-Fubara fray — all in the passion of the moment!

    On October 10, the Court of Appeal compelled Fubara to re-present his budget before the 27-member Martins Amaewhule Rivers Assembly, as against the five-member Edison Ehie faction — that became fiction in the eye of the law — that purportedly passed the budget. By the way, former Speaker Ehie is now Fubara’s chief of staff.  So, that legislative faction is down to four, led by “Speaker” Victor Oko-Jumbo.

    In a way, the verdict was a technicality.  The Court of Appeal held that since Fubara failed to defend the allegations against him — he had withdrawn his counter-affidavit before Justice James Omotoso’s Federal High Court in Abuja — he could not logically turn around to mount an appeal.

    That would appear the latest in the long line of Fubara comedy of errors, from either rash executive actions, or plain bad advice — or both. 

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    For context, even the sitting Rivers Attorney-General was confirmed by a four-member Rivers legislature, after the first resigned to protest a cabinet shuffle.  So, unless the governor and aides could prove that Martins Amaewhule and his 26 really defected to the APC and therefore had forfeited their seats, how can the product of confirmation outlawry — the AG himself — advise the governor right, at this crucial juncture?

    Two choices before the governor: to re-present the budget before Amaewhule (horrors of horrors!) or ride his luck to the Supreme Court — and he had better win! If he loses, he is toast!  Spending public money without appropriation is No. 2 crime in a democracy — only next to treason, which seeks to topple the democratic order.

    So, post-loss, it’s a water-right cause for impeachment.  By then, the governor would have set himself up for a neat, clinical legal guillotining!  But it’s all so avoidable, even if Fubara’s powerful foes didn’t give him much of a chance to resist tightening the noose around his neck, in the tragedy of asserting his authority as governor.

    Which is why there must be a third path for rapprochement, a give-and-take of mutual compromises between both camps.  But will those stoking Ijaw tribal passion for Fubara change tack?  Or even the combative Wike camp — are they not too angered beyond any reconciliation? 

    It’s grim times for Governor Fubara as the polity waits.  But whatever happens, the Wike faction too would go down with serious collateral damage.  Rivers people — poor folks — would be the worse for it.

  • How not to debate

    How not to debate

    When presidential contenders in the imminent United States elections traded tackles on the debate stage recently, the world tuned in to watch the art at among its finest. Vice President Kamala Harris was widely perceived to have outsmarted former President Donald Trump in a game of wits to swing voter loyalties. Multiple verbal jabs were exchanged, but not one got physical. Democratic and Republican number twos, Tim Walz and JD Vance, took their turn just last week. Those debates had a combined effect of offering the world a model to emulate.

    It was not the same story in neighbouring Brazil where, not long after the Harris-Trump debate held, a mayoral debate in the city of São Paulo turned ugly when one of the participants attacked his rival with a chair. The debate that was broadcast live by a famous television channel in the South American country witnessed a tense exchange between two of the participants, José Luiz Datena and Pablo Marçal, upon which Datena hitched up a chair and swung it at Marçal. The assaulter later told the channel, Tv Cultura, that he attacked his counterpart because he (Marçal) brought up an old sexual harassment allegation against him that was dismissed several years before. “He came with a case that was archived, that was not even investigated by the police because there was no evidence. Something from 11 years ago that caused a very serious situation within my family,” Datena said.

    Following the attack, Datena was expelled from the debate. On the following day, he issued a statement in which he acknowledged having made a mistake but insisted he did not regret his actions.

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    Reports said the assaulted candidate, Marçal, suffered injuries from the attack and needed to be taken to hospital for treatment. His team said he was treated for a possible fracture in the chest region and had difficulty breathing; while hospital documentation indicated that he suffered trauma to his chest and wrist, but without any major complications. Speaking later, Marçal compared the chair attack to the July assassination attempt against former President Trump in the U.S., and the stabbing of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro during the 2018 electioneering. He posted images from all three attacks on Instagram with the caption: “Why all this hate?” His team also vowed legal action against Datena.

    Other mayoral candidates continued the debate after the broadcast channel said it regretted the attack and pressed ahead with the event in line with applicable rules after the other candidates agreed. Marçal’s team said it was unfortunate the debate had continued without him, adding: “Pablo Marçal was cowardly attacked by José Luiz Datena, who hit him in the ribs with an iron chair.”

    If you had thought Nigeria was the den of brigand politics, look to a place like Brazil.

  • Restructuring – to which end?

    Restructuring – to which end?

    On July 11 came glorious legalism, from the Supreme Court,  on the local government “autonomy” front.  The Federal Government won.  The state governments lost. 

    The party is over: for states that fiddle local governments’ monies; and governors that whimsically sack elected council chair(wo)men, and impose “caretaker” councils.

    Problems comprehensively solved?  Hardly.  Just a case lost and won.  But that could well be solving one problem, but creating 10 others.

    So, you hardly can blame the Tinubu order for pushing hard the propaganda value of the win.  Flipped, the opposition would have gone no less ga-ga.  Why, Bayo Onanuga, presidential adviser on Information and Strategy, called out the ever-wailing Peter Obi, for losing his voice — using Atiku Abubakar, who hailed the judgment, as exemplar.

    In the euphoria of the moment, Bode George too, the Lagos PDP chieftain, has latched on the “autonomy” to rapidly push for total “restructuring”.  But this is where it gets interesting: restructuring — towards what end?

    By approving a direct shovelling of funds to the so-called “third tier”, the Supreme Court has well-nigh made the local government Abuja’s business.  That act “tears” the councils from the states where they are rooted — both by geography and by the federal ethos.  Grotesque? 

    By its “purposive and teleological” interpretation of Section 162 of the 1999 Constitution, might the apex court then be — teleologically — tearing off the federal clause, from a supposed federal Constitution that in practice runs as a unitary one, no thanks to the humongous powers of the central government?

    So, towards which end is Bode George’s “restructuring”, using local government “autonomy” as push — federal or unitary?  That verdict sure pushes the balance near unitary than federal!  Is the old soldier in the Lagos politician craving just that?

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    Enter, the other tested combatants over restructuring — the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission and old warhorse, Ayo Adebanjo, though the old man pushed his ideas through Afenifere, which he no longer leads.

    Both have nailed — and brilliantly too — the Supreme Court judgment.  Though they condemn state governors pinching council funds and their wayward sacking of elected councillors, they insist a “third tier” has no place in a federal state, which conceptually recognizes two partners: the central government and the federating units, the local governments being the exclusive business of the sub-nationals.

    So, which way, “restructuring”? 

    The Supreme Court verdict may have scored the short-term — and hardly ignoble — goal of securing local government funding.  That, other things being equal, should ensure better municipal and grassroots services nationwide. 

    But is it an “own goal”: creating sundry confusion on the path to re-federalization, the ultimate goal of “restructuring”?  What’s next — a “restructuring” civil war?

    Interesting times!

    •This article was first published on July 15, 2024

  • Ladoja and Obj’s seeping dregs

    Ladoja and Obj’s seeping dregs

    “See finish” — that’s the brutal lingo for it in pidgin English.  The Yoruba — and that concept isn’t exclusive to them — also quip: lies may travel for eons. But the truth zips past fibs only in a jiffy.

    So stands former President Olusegun’s penchant to bathe his public rot in a sacred halo; and only whine and brag about injustices done him — like ending up in Sani Abacha’s gulag for a phantom coup.  That was unfortunate, to be sure.

    But as the Yoruba also say: the stabber can forget — not the victim that nursed the gash, and lives with the scar ever after. So, it is for former Oyo Governor, Oba Rashidi Ladoja as he recalled, at 80, savage gashes Obasanjo dealt him.

    Speaking at a radio interview, Oba Ladoja said many claimed the late Lamidi Adedibu, the political “Alaafin Molete”, Ibadan, impeached him.  If you recall, Adedibu was Obasanjo’s garrison commander of Oyo politics.  He decreed elected Governor Ladoja must bow and worship at his shrine.  That was classic Obasanjo democratic feudalism.

    But Ladoja said Adedibu didn’t.  Nor did the late Adebayo Alao-Akala, Ladoja’s deputy but Adedibu’s mole.  Still, don’t be too hard on the dead — or on the living for that matter.  Both Ladoja and Akala were Adedibu’s magical picks, in the 2003 magical poll that “captured” the South West and sacked the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD).

    Obasanjo — yes, as then sitting president, drunk with arrogant power — did.  And why?  Because Governor Ladoja told President Obasanjo to shun the illegal third term he badly ogled.  Baba Iyabo had always claimed he never wanted — or attempted — a third term.  In the face of Oba Ladoja’s latest expose, he can tell that to the marines!

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    Obasanjo lugs the worst democracy record by any 4th Republic president since 1999.  If he was wasn’t organizing hellish elections (witness 2023, which only was mere dress rehearsal for 2007: he dubbed it “do-or-die”; and ensured 2007 lived up to that evil billing in blind steal), he was organizing phoney impeachments for governors whose faces he didn’t like, just because he could as imperial president.

    Obasanjo’s most potent tool for this presidential outlawry was his beloved “simple minority” — legal provisions for impeachment be damned!

    Sweet double irony, though: Governor Ladoja was the first to successfully challenge that era of  jungle impeachments.  He got reinstated by the courts.  But he never won a second term.  At 80 too, in all of his post-politics glory, Oba Ladoja pulled a double to tell an ugly truth Obasanjo would rather bury in his immaculate robe of eternal hypocrisy.

    At 80, Oba Ladoja has gifted the polity an invaluable present: Obasanjo-era seeping dregs and stench.  It’s a ugly window into the PDP power years, when Obasanjo laid all the bad examples and created needless problems for his successors.  Yet after, and he kids himself he’s Nigeria’s sacred political godhead, akin only to Christians and their Christ Jesus; and Muslims and their Holy Prophet Mohammed!  What hubris!

    Still, it’s the futility of playing God.  Thank God Baba Iyabo is still alive to see himself in the unflattering mirror of Oba Ladoja.

  • Banditry and Radda doctrine

    Banditry and Radda doctrine

    Again, residents of areas in the North where bandits are virulent have  been enjoined to adopt self-defence as their first line remedy. Katsina State Governor Dikko Radda is the latest proponent of that doctrine.

    The self-defence doctrine is not new and has been espoused in diverse shades. Defence Minister Bashir Magashi under the former Muhammadu Buhari administration said it wasn’t the responsibility of the military alone to secure citizens, but that every individual should be alert and ensure their own security whenever necessary. He considered it cowardly when people in communities flee for safety anytime bandits storm in with weapons, saying in his younger days people stood their ground to fight aggression. Others have espoused different versions of same doctrine. Radda’s predecessor in Katsina, Alhaji Aminu Masari, once said it was against Islamic tenets to give in to aggressors like bandits without a fight. Current Defence Minister of State Bello Matawalle, when he was Zamfara State Governor, called on resident to acquire weapons to fight bandits saying he had mandated the police to license such weapons.

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    Now, Governor Radda is making a similar case. He recently disclosed an initiative by his administration whereby communities ready to self-defend against bandits would be given necessary support and formal training on how to engage the criminals before the arrival of security agents. Radda’s logic is that some communities are so far off that it would take hours for security operatives to arrive in response to distress calls over bandit attacks. Speaking at a townhall meeting in Daura, the governor said inter alia: “I went to a village where it took me two hours inside a jeep before I reached (there) from the main road. So, if bandits attack such areas, from the time you inform the security, it will take them over two hours before they can respond to the distress call. By then, whatever is going to happen will have happened. They will have killed people and kidnapped others.” He added: “I have said several times that the security agents cannot do this work alone. We don’t even have enough of them. I am surprised at the way we are dying in such a humiliating manner. We were told that anyone who died in defence of his family would enter paradise. You see five criminals attacking a community of 2,000 to 3,000, rape daughters, women and abducting others without any confrontation from the people of that community. If there are 100 youths in the community who confront them, they will not shoot more than three times before being captured with bare hands”

    Anyone familiar with the massive land mass of the North will appreciate the point Radda was making. It makes a lot of sense. But security agencies also need to situate outposts closer to remote communities and not leave the people to their own mettle whenever bandits strike.

  • A swearing Malam El-Rufai

    A swearing Malam El-Rufai

    The thing with former Kaduna Governor Mallam Nasir El-Rufai is that he does not know how to be quiet. He is a public desperado banging his shoes to gain attention. His role as the steward of Kaduna with all the scandals was gradually going into ennui and forgetfulness as often happens in the Nigerian narrative.

    But knowing El-Rufai, it does not matter whether for good or for ill, he will draw attention to himself. He must remain the big meat in the centre of the pot when the children must eye as they gather for a meal of pounded yam.

    So, in a Hausa programme recently on Freedom Radio Kaduna, the man was at it again. Hear him: “I did not go into politics to steal money. I was satisfied with what I had before becoming governor. I am ready to swear with the Qur’an to prove my innocence if other governors and leaders would do the same.”

    He was referring to the N423 billion probe of his time as the first citizen of the state. In the first place, if you want to swear, you should swear. There is no need for a caveat to confession. He said he would swear that he never stole any money while a governor. Why not stick to himself? Why did he want others to swear first or agree to swear before he was going to do same?

    Was he saying that because no governor before him or outside Kaduna State should agree to swear before he can undertake the religious act? Was it a form for self-guilt? He is not going to force anyone to swear and by declaring it on radio, he tried to achieve a grandstanding of religious purity. But Hardball can see through it. To begin, why no name the governors and leaders he was talking about?

    By the way, saying he would swear by the Qur’an does not make anyone innocent. Talk is cheap. Let him do it in public. Even he is not the first person to say so in public. The great IBB who was notorious as the Maradona because he was manipulating his political transition programme, stood before an audience and swore that he was going to hand over power to a civilian president. We know how that turned out.

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    So, swearing or proclaiming to swear is hypocritical vanity. In the novel, Lonesome Dove, a man and his son stole 15 horses in those days of wild, wild west in the United States, and when he was caught, he was in a state of worship trance, reading the Holy Bible with the air of a saint. A thief and a saint in one soul?

    So, we don’t need Malam El Rufai to hide under a holy book. He should tell the good people of Kaduna what he did with the books. No one said he stole; he only needs to account for the money. Did all of N423 billion fly out of the state’s coffers? It must be the magic of the century. For instance, what happened to the $26 million loan to build a ranch with one company known as Aria Foods? There is no cow, no nomad, no Aria Foods and no $26 million. It takes more than swearing to account for such flights. It is no flight of fancy. It is flight of hard currency and the people’s patrimony.

  • C’wealth job and Nwoko’s solo flight

    C’wealth job and Nwoko’s solo flight

    Senator Ned Nwoko is a Nigerian lawmaker plying his weight in the politics of imminent choice of a new Commonwealth Secretary-General. He supports The Gambia’s foreign minister, Mamadou Tangara, for the job and has keenly canvassed his candidature. But for Tangara, Nwoko’s support is akin to a prophet having honour abroad and not in his own home, because Gambians themselves have petitioned the Commonwealth against his candidature.

    The next Commonwealth Secretary-General is expected to be elected at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) holding in Apia, Samoa between October  21 and 26.

    Nwoko, who is the chair of Senate Committee on Reparation and Repatriation, in a recent statement in Abuja said Tangara had the experience needed to head the Commonwealth secretariat. He argued that the Gambian is one of the most experienced and accomplished contenders for the job, being one of the longest-serving African foreign ministers; and that his expertise in diplomacy, politics and developmental issues is unparalleled. “His deep understanding of global challenges, coupled with his unwavering commitment to Africa’s progress, makes him an ideal leader to guide the Commonwealth in this pivotal era,’’ Nwoko added.

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    His advocacy misaligns, however, with the stance of a coalition of concerned Gambians who voiced strong opposition to Tangara and openly petitioned against his candidature. In the recent petition addressed to the Chair-in-Office of CHOGM, the Commonwealth secretariat, and copied influential stakeholders like the United Kingdom’s foreign and Commonwealth affairs office, and foreign affairs ministries of The Gambia, Ghana and Lesotho, among others, the Gambians who made clear that they were also Commonwealth citizens warned that Tangara is unfit for the job by virtue of his career history. They hinged their opposition on his track record during the regime of former Gambian President Yahya Jammeh under which he served from 2010 to 2016 – Jammeh was in office from 1994 to 2016 – and during which period he repeatedly defended the regime’s dictatorship and human rights abuses until Jammeh was ousted by Gambians at the polls.

    Tangara held high-profile offices as Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Gambians Abroad, and later Permanent Representative at the United Nations, among others under Jammeh’s rule. The petitioners said he played a key role misrepresenting The Gambia’s human rights records to the international community, and his tenure was marked by allegations of complicity in suppressing dissent and failing to protect the fundamental rights of Gambian citizens.

    Tangara not only outlasted Jammeh’s rule, he has been reappointed foreign minister by the current administration of President Adama Barrow, which also fields him for the Commonwealth job. His staying power is what Senator Nwoko apparently touts. But you can’t market a product better than its producer, can you?

  • Edo (no) be Lagos!

    Edo (no) be Lagos!

    Edo no be Lagos!  That was Governor Godwin Obaseki’s victory whoop in 2020!

    He had not only worsted his godfather, sitting Edo North Senator, Adams Oshiomhole, he also gloated over the collapsed open Benin campaign for the APC candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, by the then APC National Leader but now President Bola Tinubu.

    Well, Obaseki and confederates, across PDP and APC, just slew the dragon — and no one would deny them their well-earned victory roar!

    But it was crass ingratitude writ large — for Lagos not only paved Obaseki’s path to the Edo governorship, Lagos would also provide the “raw material” for Obaseki’s preferred successor, Asue Ighodalo, so Lagos-bred, his opponents claimed, he couldn’t fluently speak his native Ishan language!

    Well, by Ighodalo’s loss at the September 21 Edo election, that ingratitude just caught up with Obaseki.  Ighodalo’s electoral conqueror, Monday Okpebholo, seems to be learning fast from Obaseki’s pit falls.

    Though he has not said it, his body language seems screaming: “Edo na Lagos o!”

    At a critical point during the polls, a video from the APC Situation Room went viral.  Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State led the praise-and-worship.  Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu was Abiodun’s praise cheer leader. Ondo’s Lucky Ayedatiwa too put in his bit.  Contrasted to the grim mood at the PDP Situation Room, it was the earliest signal yet that Obaseki and protégée had been well and truly beaten!

    Yet, it was Lagos that Governor-elect Okpebholo first visited, on his round of thank you visits!  No, Okpebholo is no Lagos boy.  Indeed, he is as rooted in Edo as Obaseki and Ighodalo are grounded in Lagos.  Still, it’s a mark of gratitude for him to rush to Lagos to thank the governor for his support and solidarity during a blistering and close poll.

    Another thing: Okpebholo would appear as humble as Obaseki is imperious.  That personality trait is said to have won over many of the grassroots folks that pushed him over the line.  He’s said to be folksy as he is humble.

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    Still, as Sam Omatseye correctly noted in his column on this back page yesterday, with so many contributing to his poll success and so many egos waiting to be massaged  after he takes office, Sanwo-Olu is his logical model, to successfully manage the IOUs he has amassed.

    Yes, Lagos has promised Edo under Okpebholo its winning blueprints.  That’s not new: it was the same under Governor Oshiomhole; and had Obaseki not been such a ringing renegade, it should have been the same under him too.  Inter-state cooperation and collaboration, in mutual respect and dignity, is something to be encouraged.

    Yet, what Okpebholo needs more is Sanwo-Olu gracious and balancing skills while dealing with his many helpers.  The Lagos APC “powers and principalities” call him “Mr. Sellable”. That’s fond admission of the grace with which he relates with them.

    Between Sanwo-Olu and his predecessor, Akinwunmi Ambode, that made a huge difference.  Had Obaseki been more “sellable” he’d probably not be grinding his teeth in painful defeat today!  Okpebholo is learning the right lessons.

  • Maduro’s Christmas

    Maduro’s Christmas

    When is it Christmas typically across the world? You may wonder if that isn’t  a dumb question, since everyone knows Christmas is a yearly festival that falls on 25th December. If you would make allowance for the entire season of Yuletide, you could say all of December is game for celebration. But have you ever envisaged Christmas kicking in from October? Come along to Venezuela for that experience.

    President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, recently ordered Santa Claus in for his country from the beginning of October, this year. Coming from a contentious presidential election in his country that he claimed to have won whereas the Venezuelan opposition, neighbouring southern American nations and the United States of America refused to recognise the victory arguing that he stole it, Maduro announced early Christmas festivities for his compatriots by presidential fiat. “This year and to honor you all, to thank you all, I am going to decree the beginning of Christmas on October 1,” he told Venezuelan people in his weekly television address, adding: “Christmas arrived early for everyone, in peace, joy and security!”

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    The Venezuelan leader perhaps needs the festivity mood more than anyone else to ease his own embattlement. He faces pressure at home and abroad over the July presidential poll victory that few countries in the world recognise – significantly, not so Venezuela’s opposition coalition, neighbouring south American governments and the U.S. that have insisted on verifying officially announced results with parallel computations. Besides, it was recently that U.S. authorities announced the seizure of a Venezuelan aircraft used by Maduro for international travels in the Dominican Republic after determining that its acquisition was in violation of sanctions by Washington, among other criminal charges. The American government got Dominican Republic courts to demobilise the aircraft while on their territory and flew it back to Florida, alleging it was illegally procured through a shell company and smuggled out of the United States for use by Maduro and his cronies.

    Early Christmas is big deal in Venezuela because the festivity period often comes with extra bonuses for public service employees and more lavish gifts in government handouts. Reports said it wasn’t the first time Maduro was using the gesture as  an administrative largesse to the citizenry, but this is his earliest start date yet for the holiday. Only that critical stakeholders weren’t on board his train. Among them, the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference protested the declaration, warning that the religious holiday should not be used for politics or propaganda. “Christmas commences on December 25,” the group asserted in a statement. But it may be Maduro needs Santa to bring him a new aircraft before then.

  • ASUU and horrid pastime

    ASUU and horrid pastime

    Hooray!  Our dons are at their favorite pastime again — declaring glorious strikes as they are wont to do!  (Applause!  Applause!)

    The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), on September 25, issued its latest 14-day ultimatum to declare a strike.  Magnanimously, the dons’ 15-day top-up was after an earlier 30-day notice. 

    The ASUU statement said the deadline was to wean the Federal Government off its delay tactics, over negotiated but inconclusive issues, that drag on and on!  Well, you can’t blame the old and tested strikes heroes, can you?  This government — indeed every Nigerian government — only understands one language: threat or force!

    Still, anyone should be alarmed that an academic union, whose forte should be reason, is always so gung-ho over going on strikes.  What do logicians say about threats?  Is it not when you’re worsted by facts and logic that you resort to threats? 

    So, shouldn’t the rest of us be worried that the reflex of Nigeria’s bastion of reason is threat — threat of strikes that yielded pretty little in the past — because their majesties, the dons, couldn’t — and still can’t — think out of the box of ready strikes?

    Still, give the devil its due.  There are always two sides to a story.  In truth, Nigerian governments have not entirely been earnest with ASUU — in negotiations and in implemented agreements — even after ASUU jumbo strikes.  That’s to be decried.

    But ASUU’s main problem is their infinite faith in strikes — and their pleasure to often weaponize it with gusto — even when its positive impact had been minimal, supremely confident they would get paid for strikes, no matter how long they do.

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    Which is why they’d threaten to trot out on another because the Buhari government called their bluff by invoking the no-work-no-pay rule, which by Labour laws is legal and legitimate.  Though the Tinubu government compassionately paid part of that unearned money, ASUU would still cite “withheld salaries” as justification!  What gracelessness!  What rabid fixation!

    Talking of fixations, ASUU would stick to “renegotiating” a 2009 agreement, instead of putting forward fresh ideas close to economic realities today? Does that even make sense?

    Well, the Federal Government must do its duty; and fairly address ASUU’s grievances. In truth, the government can do far better implementing, to the letter, agreements with the union.  But that should start with resisting any agreement it cannot implement, no matter the immediate pressure.

    Much more: it should break this sickly cycle of ASUU bully tactics — that brazen right not to work but insist on getting paid.  This ruinous strike reflex must stop. 

    Dons are paid to teach and mould students, not to become vile power and principalities that make youths’ university experience nasty and retard their future.