The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Jonathan’s code of conduct

    Jonathan’s code of conduct

    President Goodluck Jonathan is allowed to grade his priorities as the first citizen of Nigeria. But that priority, while being his prerogative, gives the Nigerian public an insight into how he weighs matters and opportunity to assess how they rank in the hierarchy for the man who steers the affairs of state.

    Barely two weeks into the new year, it seems the priority of this president does not chime in with the values that we should hold dear as a country. On the same day, when the President should have appeared with the police to launch code of conduct outlines for the men who defend the civil society against the worst ravages of immorality, President Jonathan decided to look elsewhere. On January 10, he was not there to lend presidential weight to the code of conduct meeting.

    Rather he thought his presence in a political meeting was superior in urgency to that of the code of conduct. He weighed politics over values. So he sent Vice President Namadi Sambo to the police scene while he, the President, paddled away on the murky shoal of politics where his future – meaning 2015 – was putatively at stake.

    It is all right for the President to attend a political meeting. That is the mother’s milk of all governance. He has to take care of politics, and to ignore it is to be pharisaic about his interests. But this is January 2013, and the Adamawa crisis, though serious and potentially seismic, cannot be more serious than the moral health and security challenges of Nigeria today. As a writer once said, a statesman thinks of the future stakes, but a politician is obsessed with the insular interest of now.

    That was what Jonathan did. He did not only abandon the police meeting, he also flew to Lagos to receive Ndigbo leaders. Clearly he is playing politics at the expense of governance.

    What the code of conduct means is large and far-reaching. It is about professionalism in the police, and how the men and women in uniform can act in accordance to the highest esteem of its citizens in morality. It also means tackling Boko Haram that has intimidated President Jonathan from celebrating national days in the open. He coils inside Aso Rock to do his salutes and pop champagne.

    Obviously, Jonathan’s code of conduct is to pooh-pooh code of conduct. It means this is a president who conducts himself without respect to the standards of the highest codes. If at this stage he places so important a matter below the heres and nows of development, we can say that Jonathan’s priority for 2013 is not governance but politics. That is his code of conduct for this year, and if this is true, it will be tragic. It means as a nation, we have lost 2013 even before it began. Instead of fixing power, he will fix political power. Instead of roads, he will pursue his way ahead of his governors to win the ticket. Instead of people’s welfare, he will empower his acolytes. Welcome, 2013.

  • Nigeria’s centenary and poor reading of history

    Nigeria’s centenary and poor reading of history

    Like everything else about Nigeria, government policies and programmes are designed usually by a brain trust or snickering policy wonks and either rammed down the throats of the people or railroaded through a squirming but ultimately conniving legislature. Fuel subsidy removal policy, renaming of universities, toll gate erection or destruction, Malian adventure, and now, a most inconceivable centenary project, are just a few bewildering examples. Last year, during his visit to Trinidad and Tobago to attend that Caribbean country’s Emancipation Day celebrations, President Goodluck Jonathan disclosed that Nigeria would be marking its centenary. It is not certain where the idea came from, considering that that anniversary, with its deprecatory Lugardian connotation, had never really been marked with anything resembling pomp and circumstance.

    But having announced it, and even invited his host, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trinidad and Tobago, to the celebration, it became an imperative for Jonathan and his unwilling countrymen to remember Lord Lugard’s amalgamation feat in a grand manner. And with that self-abasing decision, the semantic line between Nigeria’s amalgamation and Trinidad’s emancipation became blurred. After all, they both end in ion, and they are first and foremost objects for national mafficking. That one is pejorative and the other ennobling was inconsequential to the decision.

    Only three days ago, during a church service to mark the Armed Forces Remembrance Day, Jonathan was still bemoaning his countrymen’s misreading of Nigerian history simply because critics spoke pessimistically and derisively of Nigerian leaders. A few days after the president delivered his misplaced homily on age and divorce, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, was in Lagos reiterating the preparedness of the government to inspire the celebration of the 1914 amalgamation, a date when Lugard, without consulting the ‘natives’, forcibly merged the Northern and Southern protectorates. But afraid to be tagged a spendthrift government, especially at a time of mounting economic turmoil and spiraling debts, Anyim says the celebration will be private sector-driven.

    But even if the money can be found at no cost to the country, what of the idea behind the celebration itself? Does it make sense? Is it ennobling to celebrate a colonial idea whose consequences have proved so denigrating and so troubling? If we embrace amalgamation and elevate it unquestioningly as Jonathan’s government is doing with a year-long celebration, why shouldn’t we also celebrate the Berlin Conference (Congo Conference) of 1884-1885? It is truly shocking that the Jonathan government shows a very poor understanding of Nigerian history. Not only does it fail to appreciate great historical events that have shaped the country and its people for ill or for good, it also woefully fails to understand its many nuances, its many subtle but cataclysmic twists and turns. No one has business presiding over the affairs of Nigeria who doesn’t know the country, its past, its cultures, and its hopes.

    Trinidad and Tobago quite sensibly celebrates Emancipation Day. If we go ahead to celebrate amalgamation, we would be incontestably foolish. If the Jonathan government needs a national celebratory distraction, it should ask historians to fetch one or even a dozen for it. Surely, our historians can find a great, noble, uniting and inspiring event in our history around which our pride could coalesce. We hope this obstinate government is not too proud to back down from subjecting us to international ridicule, ridicule so deep and profound that it gives the unsavoury impression Nigerians never went to school, and didn’t study history; or that if they did, they were too dimwitted to gain profitable knowledge.

     

     

     

  • Nigeria too old to divorce?

    Nigeria too old to divorce?

    There seems to be no end to President Goodluck Jonathan’s inundating sermons. Every time he goes to a church, the pastors have formed a habit of giving him the opportunity to talk to the congregation on anything that catches his fancy. And quite some talk he does, sometimes as candid and esoteric as ever. It was on one such pulpit sometime ago that he made his famous Pharaohnic comparison, one that threw the entire country into dialectical uproar. And since one does not necessarily have to be anointed to mount any pulpit these days, it has become standard practice for top government officials to assail the country with exegetic flourish, with pastors having found a constructive corollary to permit secular authorities access.

    It was also on another pulpit that the president spoke glowingly of the virtue of caution, or what he inelegantly described as slow governance. But every time he spoke out of turn, and the country seethed in anguish or quaked with consternation, the president became angry and his aides bespattered us with furious denunciations. Well, Hardball will anger them one more time.

    On Sunday, and on another pulpit, the president heaved a fresh supply of his politico-religious homilies at us. This time, it was about the correlation between age and divorce. Speaking during the Armed Forces Remembrance Day inter-denominational service at the National Ecumenical Centre, Abuja, the president said: “In 2014, we are going to celebrate our centenary; our 100 years of existence. You cannot stay in a marriage for 100 years and say that is the time you will divorce. If there are issues that we have been managing, we will continue to manage them. We will not talk about separation.” President Jonathan assumed a marriage, let alone a turbulent one, could last for 100 years. But the president was simply being dramatic and hyperbolic to catch our attention. Not only is it unlikely for any modern marriage to last so long, given the sheer number of years involved, it is a bit of a stretch to expect that bitter and disgruntled partners would resign themselves in their dotage to unnatural tastes and frustrations. Moreover, judging from the president’s statement, it does seem we must prepare ourselves for a very grand centenary, one obviously based on appalling superfluities.

    But the president wasn’t through with his homilies. Apart from strangely and implausibly basing what he described as Nigeria’s greatness on its population and diversity, he also inspiringly declared: “Nigeria will not disintegrate. Anybody who is doing any research on sociology, psychology or political science can do his work, but Nigeria will remain one.” A researcher himself, it is indeed puzzling that the president seemed to think Nigeria’s fortunes were antithetical to scientific inquiry. Anyone interested could do research to any level, the president seemed to say, obviously in response to sceptics’ prediction of Nigeria’s breakup, but it would have little or no bearing on the country’s troubled future.

    The pulpits on which President Jonathan has declaimed so fervently and ponderously in the past two years or so have enabled us interesting peeks into the president’s psychoanalytical profile. We will get more such peeks in the coming months, for the 2015 elections are still far away. At least for now, it must be reassuring to the president and his aides that economic, political and socio-cultural factors have no effect on Nigeria’s unity, contrary to what science tells us, and what history says. The president believes Nigeria’s unity depends on its age and the forced marriage of its peoples. With such strange, unscientific beliefs, it is not surprising that he and his men have been quite unable to grapple scientifically with the real developmental challenges fracturing the country so badly down the middle.

     

  • Suntai’s aides should borrow a leaf from Kogiala

    Suntai’s aides should borrow a leaf from Kogiala

    Hon. Victor Bala Kona, Taraba State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairman, has offered a truly disingenuous explanation for the long absence from office of Governor Danbaba Suntai. According to the party chieftain, the state government had been compelled to enforce extra security measures around the hospitalised governor, who was severely injured in a plane crash last October, to prevent his enemies from harming him. How that explanation answers the allegation that the governor had stayed away from office for too long is not clear. But undeterred, Kona went on to allege that Senator Aishatu Alhassan and impeached Deputy Governor, Mr. Saleh Usman Danboyi, were determined to frustrate the governor’s return. Here again it is also not clear how they could do that, nor did Kona feel constrained to offer explanations. If certain people want to harm the governor, and others plan to frustrate his return, does it not make sense to simply ferry the governor back home post-haste, especially considering the state’s explanation that its number one citizen was now okay?

    Since early January, more speculations had surfaced concerning the governor’s declining health, with some even suggesting he was brain dead. Consequent upon those speculations, there were subterranean moves to declare him an invalid and to initiate constitutional processes for his removal. State officials have fought back with all sorts of manoeuvres ranging from production of hospital canteen photographs showing an expressionless Suntai carrying one of his twins while his wife and another visitor smiled broadly, to aides producing reports of state officials who they claimed had either visited the governor on hospital bed or spoken with him on telephone. The state Commissioner for Information, Mr. Emmanuel Bello, in fact claimed that Suntai spoke with some State Executive Council members on Christmas Day, while swearing that the governor’s recovery was “impressive.”

    There will be many more speculations about Suntai’s true health condition until he finally returns home. It is unlikely any amount of official accounts of the governor’s recuperation would be enough to satisfy curiosity both in the state and outside. In fact, with each passing week, the governor’s aides will be under pressure to concoct more astonishing stories from Germany where Suntai is reported to be hospitalised. After a while, however, the stories will become more and more unbelievable, as Kona’s funny explanation shows.

    It wouldn’t be out of place to offer Taraba the Kogi State example of coming clean on their governor’s true health condition. But perhaps Kogi was forward because its governor had suffered nothing more than a broken thigh bone when his convoy was involved in a road crash. Had Governor Idris Wada of Kogi been crushed in many parts of the body, maybe even Kogi State, as Enugu and Cross River States are showing with their ailing governors, would be inexplicably but predictably reticent and conspiratorial.

  • 10,000MW: If wishes were horses

    10,000MW: If wishes were horses

    The Minister of State for Power, Mrs. Zainab Kuchi, was reported to have gushed before the Presidential Action Committee on Power in Abuja on Tuesday that the Federal Government planned to generate 10,000 Megawatts of electricity by December 2013. The government’s confidence probably derives from the fact that by the end of last year generation capacity stood at 6,442MW, while actual generation peaked at 4,517.6MW. The reports on Kuchi’s presentation did not say how the government planned to achieve the target it set for the year. Perhaps she gave the needed details, only that they were not reported, and she expected her audience to believe her projections, if she could somehow wave a magic wand.

    For a highly skeptical public, however, the projections are not only far-fetched, they seem too overly optimistic. First is the nebulous figure associated with the so-called generation capacity, which is so subjective as to be statistically meaningless. Why use it in any presentation or discourse when it is nothing but a chimera? But more crucially is the actual electricity generation for 2013, which Kuchi indicated would rise to 10,000MW. Ten thousand megawatts? Why, even pigs might fly!

    Neither the President Goodluck Jonathan government nor any before it has managed to come near its electricity generation projections at any time. Shortly after assuming power in 1999, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo enthusiastically saddled the late Chief Bola Ige with the task of solving the energy problems of the country. Not only were the shifting targets not met by the end of Obasanjo’s first term, it became doubtful by 2003 that any reasonable target could be met by the end of his second term. It will be recalled that he also set a 10,000MW target for 2007, only to end up, after spending billions of dollars on electricity projects, generating even less than he met on assumption of office.

    Admittedly, a part of the problem that hobbled Obasanjo’s effort to solve the electricity problem of Nigeria had been mitigated by the Yar’Adua amnesty programme. But to suggest that in about 11 months the government could double electricity generation over its current levels is to stretch bureaucratic confidence too far. In the last year or two of their presidencies, both Obasanjo and the late President Umaru Yar’Adua repeatedly revised their estimates downwards, at various times citing either shortage of water in the nation’s hydroelectric dams, disrupted gas supplies and pipeline vandalisation, and plain sabotage. None of these three major factors has been thoroughly dealt with to warrant the kind of unabashed confidence Kuchi exuded.

    It is said that if wishes were horse, beggars would ride. Indeed, as much as we would like to give the government the benefit of the doubt and yield to their enthusiasm, it is still hard to see what sort of magical horse the government hopes to ride into 10,000MW. Their main challenge this year should be how to maintain the little progress they have made in the past few months and possibly how to build on it a little at a time. A little modesty would serve their optimism well. In fact what the people want is not extraordinary projections, but simple realism. To generate even 6,000MW would be stupendous achievement, one that would impact favourably on the economy and transform the social environment of the people. If that figure is surpassed, the government can justifiably boast; but if they fall below it, they can offer reasonable alibis. But to set target at a humongous 10,000MW is to tempt fate far beyond their ability to manage.

    Nigerians must also hope that in the event of failing to meet their own lofty expectations, the government would be honest enough not to say that what they promised the country was 10,000MW generation capacity.

  • Jonathan and Obasanjo on Boko Haram

    Jonathan and Obasanjo on Boko Haram

    By and by, President Goodluck Jonathan will start to understand just how relentless and detached a foe Chief Olusegun Obasanjo can be to anyone, irrespective of the opponent’s status. Hardball had once here captured the quintessential Obasanjo and recounted his political and literary odysseys over the decades. The former president’s quarrel with Jonathan over which approach to adopt in the fight against the extremist Islamic sect, Boko Haram, is merely a short chapter in the long-running saga of his life. In November 2012, Obasanjo had argued Jonathan was slow in tackling the Boko Haram terror problem. He then advised the president to borrow a leaf from the drastic steps he employed in pacifying Odi in Bayelsa State in November 1999 when some militants murdered soldiers and policemen in that small town.

    But the former president reversed himself, according to yesterday’s newspapers, when he told the CNN in an interview that Jonathan was fixated on fighting the sect rather than negotiating with it. According to him, “To deal with a group like that, you need a carrot and stick. The carrot is finding out how to reach out to them. When you try to reach out to them and they are not amenable to being reached out to, you have to use the stick… Jonathan is just using the stick…He’s doing one aspect of it well, but the other aspect must not be forgotten.” The president’s spokesman, Reuben Abati, has responded by pointing out the contradictory positions the former president has taken on the matter in barely two months. But it was unnecessary for Jonathan’s spokesman to respond to Obasanjo’s criticisms. When the former president spoke to the CNN, it was obvious he had forgotten the counsel he gave Jonathan in November. Nor, apparently, did he recollect that in 2011, he had himself tried to reach out to Boko Haram leaders and got his fingers burnt. Those he reached out to in Maiduguri, the hotbed of Boko Haram, were summarily executed for daring to speak with him.

    This column does not dare to defend Jonathan in his struggles with his mentor. However, it must be obvious to even a child in Nigeria that the president has never been opposed to dialogue with Boko Haram. All he wants is peace to enjoy his tenure, no matter the price. That he has vacillated annoyingly over Boko Haram so far is less a reflection of his lack of moral or ideological courage than it is an indication of his own lack of depth in understanding the critical determinants of great leadership. After being thoroughly and repeatedly embarrassed by Boko Haram, Jonathan a long time ago jettisoned the little fight left in him and embraced dialogue with the sect. In fact on one occasion he plaintively announced his readiness for talks if the sect’s leaders would show their faces.

    Obasanjo, it seems, is driven not by logical consistency on any issue but by overriding self-importance and self-interest. In November 2012, it suited him to lampoon Jonathan for pacifism and slow action; and two months later it has pleased him to lambast the same Jonathan for undue use of force and inflexibility. If it will massage his ego on some hypothetical tomorrow, Obasanjo will damn Jonathan for not expediently leapfrogging over Boko Haram to negotiate with Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM). Obasanjo is Jonathan’s mentor, and in the fog of his criticisms of his mentee, we discern the former characterising the latter as a supple soul easily bent by the wind. The mentee, on his own, should by now have understood his mentor as a man of doubtful loyalties whose attachment to anyone is as fickle as a feather in a gale. It is a tribute to their vaunted leadership skills that while they squabble, the Boko Haram menace festers very badly.

  • Two cultures and low self-esteem

    Two cultures and low self-esteem

    The two photographs reprinted in this column were published co-incidentally on the same day, yesterday, and they tell graphic stories of two disparate cultures that lead the reader to one unenviable and unflattering conclusion. Picture 1 (top right) shows some of the 60 suspects arrested on Monday by men of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) somewhere near Ikorodu, Lagos State, for alleged pipeline vandalism. That is not a problem, for Nigerians no longer flinch at indiscriminate arrests, a habit their law enforcement agents have perfected over the decades. The real problem for Nigerians who still retain some cultural pride is the treatment given the suspects. They were made to sit on the ground, their shirts removed, and their dignity, which is worth little in these parts, trampled on the ground. The photograph shows the suspects looking forlornly at the weapons they allegedly used against the NSCDC officials.

    Move over to Picture 2 (bottom right) and see the treatment given some 15 Russian suspects alleged to have sailed into Nigerian waters illegally. They were seized, together with their ship and a cache of weapons, and handed over to the police for further investigations. But here again the problem is not whether the allegations against the white men are plausible or not, though it strains credulity a little; or whether they would soon be released to Russian embassy officials in Nigeria, for this also seems very likely. The problem for the culturally finicky is that all the Russian suspects were photographed standing, not sitting degradingly on the ground. None of the Russians was stripped of his clothes, and their weapons, which they claimed was for their defence on pirate-infested high seas, were not spread mockingly before them.

    The judicious will find it hard to understand this self-deprecating Nigerian mentality. Indeed, it’s no use trying. Many analysts suspect there is a fundamental behavioural dysfunction afflicting Nigerian officials, whether in high places or in the law enforcement agencies. It is perhaps time we challenged our psychologists and sociologists to attempt an explanation of the malady. Or, maybe, a leader with enough chutzpah and self-esteem would one day rise and put an end to this disgraceful affliction.

     

     

  • Assad still unrepentant, murderous, chimerical

    Assad still unrepentant, murderous, chimerical

    The Syrian uprising, a subset of the Arab Spring that began in Tunisia in December 2010, is about 22 months old. So far, according to United Nations (UN) estimate, some 60,000 people have lost their lives in the civil war that is now raging all over Syria. After many months of disunited rebellion opposition groups have finally shed their Free Syrian Army toga and united under the umbrella of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC). Alarmingly, however, the rebellion is becoming an all-out sectarian war between Shiites and Sunnis. The economy of the country has all but collapsed, and untold suffering, massive destruction of infrastructure, and a fragmented and shattered society have resulted from the seemingly endless war. The world must, therefore, have been shocked two days ago to watch the beleaguered President Bashar Al-Assad mount the stage of the Damascus Opera House to give a television address lambasting the opposition and deigning to offer what he believed to be a solution to the crisis.

    Barely six months into the uprising that began in March 2011, Hardball had predicted that the uprising would progress into a civil war, especially given the hardening of government position and the antecedents of the senior Hafez al-Assad who brutally suppressed a Muslim Brotherhood uprising against his government in 1982. That suppression more than 30 years ago led to the death of an estimated 40,000 people in Hama, according to Syrian Human Rights Committee. If in 2011 it had seemed Hardball was unduly hardline, by the following year, however, he was predicting that the uprising could turn sectarian, given the fact that the al-Assads, who are Alawites, belong to the minority Shiites (13% of the population), as their Iranian supporters, while the opposition is largely Sunni (74% of the population), as their Wahhabi Saudi Arabian and Qatari supporters. Unfortunately for Syria, the war has all but become sectarian.

    But Hardball also predicted in 2012 that there was no way the rebels could lose, for history, demographics, the spirit of the Arab Spring, and popular international sentiments favoured them. Indeed, both the support for al-Assad and the reluctance of the West to commit completely to the cause of the rebels could be due to apprehension of how Sunni victory would redraw regional power structures. It is unlikely Western reluctance is caused by fear of Chinese, Russian and Iranian support for Syria’s Baathist government. The West in fact appears unsure that the Syrian variant of the Arab Spring is motivated by the hunger for democracy, especially in view of the recent controversy in Egypt that has led to the approval in a referendum of a new constitution with distinct Islamic overtones. The sectarian composition of Syria and the history of the Muslim Brotherhood revolt in Hama may also account for why the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood government under Mohammed Morsi intensely detest al-Assad. It will be recalled that Morsi on Sunday called for al-Assad to be tried for war crimes.

    In the final analysis, no matter how long-drawn the civil war in Syria becomes, the rebels will win. Al-Assad’s television address on Sunday tabling a condescending proposal for peace will be scorned. The offer, according to a news agency report, consists of the following:

    — Outside powers to stop arming “terrorist groups.”

    — The army would then halt military operations, while reserving the right to defend state interests.

    — The government would then contact “Syrian individuals and political parties” to engage in a conference of national dialogue.

    — The conference would try to establish a national charter that would be put to a referendum, leading to parliamentary elections and a new government.

    The West, with the unintended power shift in Iraq on their minds, will also reluctantly offer support to the rebels only because of the scale of the Syrian slaughter, and then wait with bated breath to see which way the sectarian and democratic pendulums would swing. Russia, China, and Iran will eventually come to terms with the reality of al-Assad’s deposition, no matter how galling. The unrepentant and chimerical al-Assad, who is still breathing murder and cruelty, will be lucky to escape with his life. However, sooner or later, the current stalemate will be broken; but it will be at a terrible cost to the country, even as many top officials, including ordinary Syrians, will pay a terrible and prohibitive price for freedom, of course, without the calming effect of knowing the shape of the future.

     

  • The Indian rape case

    The Indian rape case

    The brutal rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in India mid-December has brought to the surface and to a climax decades of mistreatment of women in that country. Her death on December 28 in a Singaporean hospital may finally push India into taking more vigorous action against rape. But it is not clear to what extent the action will lead to a fundamental change in the attitude of law enforcement agents who seem to connive at the crime and, in some cases, even participate in the crime. Nor is it clear how soon the action will compel change in a culture that denigrates women. Indeed, but for the massive countrywide demonstrations that greeted the rape of the medical student in New Delhi, it is doubtful the Indian criminal justice system would have risen stoutly to the challenge of doing something concrete about the cancer eating up the country. The stories of rape in India, some too graphic to recount here, should shame the government into finally stiffening the laws against the menace.

    While justice is expected to be done in the Indian rape case, especially considering that forensic evidence has implicated the five suspects already charged in court over the crime, other countries with lax rape laws, such as Nigeria, must not wait to be shamed internationally before they take steps to curb the crime and make the society safe for women. Sadly, like India, rape sometimes occurs in police stations in Nigeria. The Nigeria police authorities must ensure its stations are completely sanitised of that crime. Unfortunately too, when sex crimes occur outside police stations, law enforcement agencies often take very conciliatory view towards offenders. This too must stop. While India takes steps to redeem its image, it is important that Nigeria should revisit the provisions in our laws dealing with that insufferable crime. It is also time law enforcement agencies got a new code of conduct concerning their response to reports of rape.

    Part of the Nigerian response to rape must doubtless include documenting every case of rape, creating a databank of sex offenders which can be accessed on request by educational institutions and potential employers, and imposing very stiff penalties for rape convictions. Rape is an indication of underlying psychiatric problems. It must not be treated with levity. Until Nigeria recognises the huge responsibility it has to make the society safe for females, child or adult, legislation and enforcement will not match the horrendousness of the crime.

  • It’s not enough to release Al-Mizan editors

    It’s not enough to release Al-Mizan editors

    On Tuesday, the State Security Service (SSS) released from detention Mallam Mohammed Awwal, editor of a Kaduna-based Hausa newspaper, Al-Mizan, and his reporter, Mallam Aliyu Saleh, after about 10 days in detention. At the time of their arrest on December 23, 2012, no one knew which agency of government was involved in the dawn raid that saw the journalists and their families manhandled. In fact, at a point, some observers were unsure whether agents of a civilized government could employ such tactics in a country governed by laws. It had to be some criminal organisations, they feared. Some days later, it turned out surprisingly that the culprit was in fact the rather upper crust SSS. But to compound its unconstitutional act, the agency even kept the editors longer than the limit prescribed by law. The arrest of the editors was believed to be in connection with the current edition of the paper which contains a story on the alleged atrocities perpetrated by men of the Military Joint Task Force (JTF) in Potiskum against 84 persons said to have been abducted and whisked away to unknown destinations.

    A chafing Hardball had argued three days after the arrest of the editors that the method employed was gangsterish, and that it would be insufficient to merely release the editors later without the government investigating whether the law was not broken in the attempt by whoever was involved to uphold the law. The column feared rogue elements could be at work. Said he on December 26: “Whatever the merit of the case against the editors, the methods employed in arresting them are evidently unlawful and showed how clearly law and order can no longer be guaranteed in the country. Even for the most inciting and mendacious media reports, there are established modalities for tackling them and dealing with media professionals who break the law. With the country swamped by robbers, kidnappers, impersonators, and security agents who have embraced extra-judicial killing, it is a disservice to the government and people of Nigeria for any law enforcement body to adopt the style of the underworld. The Kaduna abductions indicate the gradual and steady decline of the country into jungle justice.

    “If any security agency is complicit in the unlawful arrest of the editors, it is not enough that the editors should be released and the proper procedures followed in bringing them to justice for any journalistic wrongdoing; the abduction itself must also be investigated and all the law enforcement agents involved in the unlawful act punished. The danger in glossing over this obnoxious method of law enforcement is that the gangland style of arresting citizens will be successfully imitated by criminal organisations, as in fact is already being done, encouraged by the culture of impunity that is pervasive among security agencies.”

    Now that it is clear the SSS, which Hardball had once singled out for praise in this space, was behind the abductions, the government, if it knows its responsibility, must require explanations from the agency. A country governed by laws must never submit to official gangsterism. There is no place for such methods in modern Nigeria. The manner of the arrests was brutal, considering that it had to do with journalists alleged to have published inaccurate information, and the detention of the editors beyond the permissible limit of 48 hours was itself unlawful and indefensible.

    Though they are now free, and no charge has been brought against them, neither Al-Mizan nor the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) should treat the matter with kid gloves. The SSS and the federal government should be taken to court and made to explain why they willfully broke the law, and to show cause why they should not be punished for dragging the country back into the military era. Nigeria would be reduced to a jungle when agencies of government deliberately subvert the constitution and make nonsense of our laws. It is either we are governed by laws or we are not; there is no space in-between.