The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Abba and the Gang – 2 

    Abba and the Gang – 2 

    Abba and the Gang (2 August 2023) first made a landing here when Abba Yusuf, new Kano governor, went on a demolition spree: Daula Boutique Hotel (worth N100 bn); and Kano’s Golden Monument (worth N160 million), erected to mark 50 years of Kano State’s creation in 1967. 

    The Abba Yusuf typhoon must tear through Kano because Governor Yusuf and his gang must settle political scores.

    Now, Tyhoon Abba just struck again: setting fire to his own roof but throatily blaming others!  It’s all the politics of Emir enthronement and dethronement. 

    Gone — at least by the Kano executive-legislative fiat of May 23 — are the Emirs of Kano, Rano, Karaye, Bichi and Gaya, all created from the sole Kano Emirate, by the Abdullahi Ganduje ancien regime.

    Back is the old sole emirate, with Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II, the volcanic Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, back as the 16th Kano emir, after his Ganduje deposition as 14th emir in 2019.

    Whatever the Kano government does in its territory is no business of Hardball.  Our business is the dire consequences of governors and legislators acting before thinking.  Here, Governor Yusuf and the Kano Assembly take the cake.

    If you must remove an emir, you must have thought hard; and planned ever harder to manage the bumpy aftermath.  The case here is clearly the opposite.

    The moment the deposed Emir Aminu Ado Bayero called the governor’s bluff and landed in Kano to press his rights — referencing a reported court injunction — Governor Yusuf panicked. 

    He ordered the police to arrest him — what for?   So, because Bayero is an emir, he had lost his right as a citizen under the law?  Imagine if Kano had its own state police!  It’s governors like Yusuf that give state police a bad name!

    Then, Deputy Governor, Aminu Gwarzo latched on to a chain of reckless allegations:  Ganduje and National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, conspired to ferry the deposed emir into Kano!  The Army Headquarters (read the Federal Government) was in on the plot too: to browbeat Kano for a “popular” dethronement! 

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    On the NSA, Gwarzo has already eaten crow, claiming the Kano administration was misled.  If the NSA allegation is false, how can the Ganduje one be true, by basic logical thinking, since both are linked?

    The governor himself first flew off the handle: the judge that granted the instruction was abroad.  Even if he was, was the governor himself right by resorting to self-help, instead of going back to that same court to vacate the injunction?

    Then, the state Attorney-General claimed the injunction came after the entire process had been concluded.  Are these all stacking of cards?  Shouldn’t the government have taken that cast-iron evidence to court?

    However this case is resolved — and the judiciary should take its rightful place — it is clear, by two glaring examples now, that Abba Yusuf and his gang lack the emotional intelligence to govern a local government, talk less of an entire state. 

    You don’t set your house on fire and passionately start to blame others.  That’s exact,y what the Kano government is doing. 

    The courts should fasten the judicial processes before things get out of hand. An emirate with two emirs holding court is a recipe for disaster.

  • Pattern of lawlessness

    Pattern of lawlessness

    Three recent cases in which the country’s security agents unlawfully caged journalists had one striking thing in common. In each case, the journalist involved was reported to have been “abducted” by security agents. This is disturbing, particularly its frequency.

    The latest case involved Madu Onuorah, the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Globalupfront, an online medium. “About ten fully-armed policemen stormed his residence in Lugbe, Abuja, in two Sienna buses,” the medium’s management said in a statement following the May 22 incident, which was said to have happened “in the presence of his wife and children who fruitlessly demanded from the police why they were arresting the head of the family.”

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    The police seized his phones, “thereby completely cutting him off from communication with people, including his family members,” they said, adding, “He was not even allowed to contact his lawyer or any of his relations before he was whisked away to the Lugbe police station by the stern looking operatives.”

    A subsequent statement said he was released on bail on the night of May 23 “by Enugu State Police Command who requested the Ebonyi Police to abduct him for them.”

    Before this was the case of another journalist, Daniel Ojukwu, who works for the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ).  FIJ said Ojukwu “was abducted by the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) of the Inspector-General of Police” on May 1. When he was located at the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, Lagos, he had been “held incommunicado for three days, with no access to legal representation.”  He was later transferred to the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC) in Abuja, where he was further detained for five days before his release on bail.  He was accused of violating the Cybercrime Act.

    Before this, in an oppressive operation, agents of the Nigerian military invaded the home of Segun Olatunji, the then General Editor of FirstNews, an online medium. They took him away from his Abule-Egba home in Lagos State, on March 15.  The military denied knowledge of his whereabouts. They flew him to Abuja blindfolded, and detained him for two weeks under harsh conditions before eventually releasing him following public and professional outcry. Olatunji said they asked him about certain stories published in FirstNews, concerning the Chief of Defence Intelligence and the Chief of Staff to the President.

    This pattern of lawlessness by the country’s security agents against journalists is condemnable. The authorities should not encourage it by their silence and inaction. 

  • DSS and rule of lawlessness

    DSS and rule of lawlessness

    A society dies by instalment when the rule of law gets desecrated or spurned. That is why there must be vigilance against violations, and any violation called out whenever it occurs. There was reported violation of the rule recently in Ogun State when suspected operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) arrested some persons being tried before a court, against an instruction by the trial judge.

    Two defendants who were arraigned before an Ogun high court sitting in Ilaro, Yewa South council area, were seized by persons believed to be DSS operatives penultimate Monday for their suspected instigation of unrest in Agosasa community, Ipokia council area. The defendants, named Fatai Isiaka and Samuel Oyero, were standing trial for alleged arson following Obaship tussle in Agosasa community that resulted in violence in which property estimated at millions of naira were destroyed and one person killed. Following the crisis, a notable community member reportedly accused the defendants of instigating the violence in which weapons were reportedly used on innocent locals, in their bid to install a candidate different from the person approved by the Ogun State Government as community monarch.

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    The defendants were standing trial in a case titled “The State vs. Awode Oladosu & 13 others” over which Justice A. A. Shobayo presided. No sooner had the day’s proceedings ended than the two defendants were reportedly manhandled within the court premises and whisked away by the suspected DSS operatives, according to the defence counsel. Confirming the arrest, Principal Registrar of the High Court and Sectional Head of High Court in Ilaro, Omololu Olusanya, decried it as disrespectful to the rule of law because the judge had ordered the operatives not to make any arrest within the court premises, but that was what they did with the two persons. According to him, the operatives did not wear any outfit that identified them as from the secret police but they were so identified because they had approached the judge before the court session began that they had arrests to make, upon which the judge instructed them that it must not be done within the court premises. “But they refused that advice and carried out the arrests within the premises,” Olusanya said.

    The DSS has not disclaimed the operatives, while the two men are said to currently be in its Ogun State command’s custody in Abeokuta. But media outlets cited anonymous sources saying the men had spurned prior invitations by the security service and had proven elusive, which was why they were tackled down at the court. But you could ask if it wasn’t contemptuous of court – not only to arrest suspects for offences they were already standing trial, but doing that within court premises against a judge’s express directive. Rule of force must never override the rule of law.

  • Clark talks the talk

    Clark talks the talk

    Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark, is talking the talk of peace.  But look closely, he’s walking the walk of war. 

    That’s what you do when you jump, one-sided and with both feet, into a fray; yet sound dovish to play on emotions, only because your dog in the fight is being whipped; or because he’s whipping himself.

    That’s the sad and stark story of Governor Siminilayi Fubara of Rivers State.  He gets fazed by each Wike manoeuvre, badly panics and whips himself. 

    Why does Fubara think he can out-talk Wike in trash-talking to browbeat an adversary, an act in which Wike is near-supreme master? 

    Why does Fubara think he can beat Wike to his own game, when all he has done, doing the Wike encore, is heighten tension in Rivers, while Wike preens over his Abuja “projects”, to divert attention?

    Why can’t Clark, for once, tell Fubara to do sober introspection, talk less, think more, and stop swallowing Wike’s cynical baits?

    Clark can’t because, ab initio, he butted in as uncritical Wike supporter — the Ijaw czar as glorified choirboy of Fubara’s cause, just because Fubara is Ijaw and Wike is not. 

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    Was Clark even there when Wike was clearing the coast for Fubara, before their sweet song turned nasty innuendo?

    After the Abuja presidential accord, all Clark did was shoot down that accord’s delicate balancing.  He wailed that Fubara was cheated, though he was governor.  He stopped just short of insinuating that the president helped Wike, over his estranged godson, simply because Wike helped the president to win Rivers.

    That — un-elderly — radicalism only goaded Fubara to reckless acts — for what do you call pulling down the Rivers Assembly building, in full public glare?

    With Fubara now spending money un-appropriated by the legislature — thus gravely undermining himself should impeachment push come to a shove — Clark just chanced on a mealy-mouthed appeal to APC and PDP national chairs against allegedly aiding and abetting Wike?  The old man can certainly do better!

    As for Wike, who cares if his goose is cooked?  He has made too much racket in the public space!  So, if his godson now dares to demystify him, as Wike had also demystified his own godfathers, who cares?

    Still, should Wike and Fubara fight to finish and set Rivers on fire, elders like Chief Clark would bear part of the blame.  Which  is why he must prevail on Fubara to use his head.

    Former President Goodluck Jonathan’s counsel is more like it: in politics you win some, you lose some — and he’s as Ijaw as Clark and Fubara, isn’t he?  In a crisis, zero-sum-game peaks in nothing but mutually assured destruction (MAD).

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Ridiculous reason

    Ridiculous reason

    Perhaps unwittingly, the Federal Government exposed its fear of terrorists, and suggested it was powerless against them, during the ongoing trial of alleged terrorism enabler Mohammed Tukur Mamu who had sought transfer from the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS) to the Kuje Correctional Centre, Abuja.  The Federal Government had opposed his request, citing incessant jailbreaks in the country.

     Notably, the jailbreak at the Kuje prison, Abuja, in July 2022, further heightened public concern about insecurity in the country, particularly because this happened in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the seat of the Federal Government. The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) claimed responsibility for the attack on the Kuje prison, which led to the escape of about 900 inmates, including 64 “high-profile Boko Haram terrorists.” This is the prison Mamu had unsuccessfully requested that he be transferred to.  

    Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, dismissed Mamu’s request based on the Federal Government’s argument regarding frequency of prison breaks in the country, saying he did not contradict or dispute the claim. The judge ordered that he remain in DSS custody throughout his trial. 

    He was arrested at the Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano State, following his arrival from Egypt in September 2022. He was accused of collaborating with the terrorists who attacked the Abuja-Kaduna train in March 2022. The DSS, in March 2023, arraigned him for terrorism financing, among others. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

    The history of jailbreaks in the country shows that there were 18 cases from 2015 to 2022. This supports the Federal Government’s claim regarding never-ending prison breaks.  But the federal authorities should accept responsibility for poor security at the prisons, which is mainly why the jailbreaks happen. 

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    Indeed, in April, yet another jailbreak happened at the Medium Security Custodial Centre, Suleja, Niger State, a 250-capacity centre located “about 80km” from the FCT. The authorities said 119 inmates at the facility fled into the night. The facility, said to have been built during the colonial era, was described as old and weak.

    Early this year, Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) spokesperson Abubakar Umar had bragged that there were no jailbreaks and prison attacks in 2023, attributing the “achievement” to “the effectiveness of the top-level security measures that have been diligently upheld in our custodial centres across the nation.” The Suleja jailbreak not only contradicted the claim of improved security at the country’s prisons; it further exposed poor security at the prisons.

    It was ridiculous that the Federal Government highlighted the frequency of jailbreaks in the country as its reason for opposing Mamu’s request for transfer to the Kuje prison. It was an indirect admission of poor security at the prisons, and underlined the government’s failure in that regard.  

  • Speaker and a troubled largesse

    Speaker and a troubled largesse

    Some presumed acts of benevolence can be as hazardous as outright malevolence. That was what Niger State House of Assembly Speaker Abdulmalik Sarkindaji belatedly realised about his plan to marry off 100 girls in Mariga council area  of the state. Sarkindaji represents Mariga constituency in the state assembly.

    The speaker had recently announced plans to sponsor a ceremony at which the 100 girls will be given out in a mass wedding. He was reported telling journalists in Minna that the initiative was part of his constituency empowerment project “aimed at alleviating the suffering of the impoverished.” He said the ‘beneficiaries,’ whose age range he didn’t disclose, were carefully selected from among 170 girls whose names were submitted, adding that he would pay bridegrooms’ dowries and had procured materials needed for the girls’ relative comfort in their marital homes in line with custom. The initial narrative was that the 100 girls are orphans, and that Niger State Governor Umar Bago and Emir of Kontagora, Alhaji Mohammed Barau, would serve as their guardians during the mass wedding scheduled for 24th May.

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    Faced with backlash of accusations that he planned to involve the girls in forced marriages, Sarkindaji explained that he was sponsoring the wedding out of concern for the girls’ parents. In a statement through a spokesperson, he said more than 50 of the girls had suitors but their parents had no means to meet their customary marriage expenses, while the other category comprised those who’ve lost their parents to insecurity and had no one to finance their wedding despite attaining marriageable age and with suitors ready to marry them. The speaker further explained that he arrived at the decision to sponsor the mass wedding after he had consulted widely within his constituency, including with immediate parents, relations of those orphaned, religious leaders and other critical stakeholders.

    But Sarkindaji eventually pulled back altogether after he was taken to court by Women Affairs Minister Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye to halt the wedding plan. He announced last week that while he had provided funds to the girls’ relations through community leaders and clerics and would not be recalling the funds, the wedding would not go ahead because of the minister’s affronting challenge.

    One could ask Sarkindaji  whether sponsoring a mass wedding is the best he could do for indigent constituents. Can’t he offer scholarships for schooling; or if they’re beyond schooling age, set them up in viable businesses? Marrying young ones off in a mass wedding is human commoditisation and gross abuse because there’s a long stretch of life after wedding that he isn’t taking into account. There must be better ways of rendering constituency support.

  • Concert of losers – and plotters

    Concert of losers – and plotters

    The political circuit is agog with the Concert of Losers and Plotters de-marketing the ruling order, no matter how ridiculous they sound; always hoping the people are gullible and always available to be scammed.

    That’s the impression you get from the latest tours of the eternally restless and excitable Peter Obi, self-condemned to a torrent of talks, sensible or senseless, just to keep up the fob for his doting Obidients.

    Still, Obi’s latest tours should really intrigue you.  First, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.  At the 2023 presidential election, Obi and Atiku viciously neutralized each other, while President Bola Tinubu galloped into town with the presidential diadem.

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    Atiku, hitherto self-projected Mr. Pan Nigeria, declared himself the autochthonous northerner, who every genuine northerner must vote.  It was practical but fatal political Freudian slip, exposing Atiku for what he really is — a closet northern irredentist.

    Obi, on the other hand, pushed for naked Igbo and Christian votes, deluding himself such raw appeal to tribe and faith would push him through.  He collapsed, though given his tally as third best, he was able to game many sorry souls.

    Both pounced on each other, claiming victory from a clear and meritorious loss. Both oozed mutual contempt at each other, while claiming they would triumph at the courts.  When both crashed after the Supreme Court’s final verdict, both danced naked with intemperate howls that saw nothing but gloom and doom.

    But now, both — breaking news! — are back under the same sheets, plotting where delusional hope always springs eternal!  By the way, both had bad-mouthed the Lagos-Calabar coastal road, thus alienating not quite a few in that belt, in their early poaching and pitching for 2027.

    But beyond Atiku, Obi’s new taste appears some sweet but strange cuisine: he savours the politically living dead.  Sule Lamido of Jigawa was the glorious Obasanjo era poster boy.  But Lamido, always a damp squib, is politically displaced from his Jigawa lair.

    He also serenaded Bukola Saraki — the one who inherited his father, the goodly Baba Oloye, Dr. Olusola Saraki’s lifelong Kwara political empire, but crashed it in less than 12 years, instead becoming a political living dead!

    O, if Obi doesn’t go to this one, this one would go to Obi: Pat Utomi, the Don Quixote of Nigerian politics, always tilting at the windmills of “mega party”, every pre-election season!  He was also with Obi during his Labour Party misadventure!

    No — it’s no crime to plot for legitimate power in a democracy.  But this Concert of Losers and Plotters must know: had they implemented critical, life-changing policies during the Olusegun Obasanjo PDP era, they won’t all be in political Siberia now. 

    Eternal plotting won’t get them out of that hole.  Only quality thinking will.  But the snag: the lost PDP boys and quality thinking are two parallel lines that will never meet.  Too bad!

  • Police as puppets

    Police as puppets

    After a sequence of questionable actions, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), on May 10, released journalist Daniel Ojukwu, who works for the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ). Ojukwu’s whereabouts were initially unknown, according to the FIJ, which treated his disappearance as possibly a missing person case before locating him at the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, Lagos, in circumstances that were against the law.

    The FIJ said Ojukwu “was abducted by the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) of the Inspector-General of Police on Wednesday, 1 May 2024.” When he was located, he was said to have been “held incommunicado for three days, with no access to legal representation.”  He was later transferred to the Nigeria Police Force National Cybercrime Centre (NPF-NCCC) in Abuja, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), where he was further detained for five days.

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    NPF spokesperson Muyiwa Adejobi defended the actions of the police, saying Ojukwu was “lawfully apprehended and detained pursuant to a valid remand warrant issued by a competent court of justice on May 2nd 2024. His initial detention in Lagos and subsequent transfer to Abuja by the FCID-National Cybercrime Centre (NCCC) aligns with standard investigative procedures undertaken by police.”

    He added that the journalist “has a case to answer and as such will be arraigned in court upon conclusion of investigations.” Ojukwu was released on bail, he said, “pending the commencement of prosecution at the Federal High Court which has jurisdiction over cyber related crimes,” adding that his release was not influenced by a protest staged by a coalition of civil society groups at the Force Headquarters, Abuja. 

    According to the police, the journalist was arrested based on a petition written against him, accusing him of violating the Cybercrime Act. Ojukwu had written a story revealing how the Senior Special Assistant to former President Muhammad Buhari on Sustainable Development Goals (SSAP-SDGs), Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, allegedly paid N147m to a restaurant for the construction of classrooms and a skill acquisition centre in a primary school in Lagos.

    It is unclear how the police are carrying out investigation of the case, but they should note that the attentive public is interested in critical issues raised in the controversial story: How over N147m ended up in the restaurant’s account, how a restaurant came to build a classroom and acquisition centre a year before the government paid it, and how a project awarded for a school in Ajeromi supposedly ended up in two locations away from the Local Government Area. They should pay greater attention to the journalist’s findings, and stop acting like puppets. 

  • Impunity and under-bridge landlords

    Impunity and under-bridge landlords

    There has always been something impunitous about the ‘Omo oni’le’ (roughly translating as ‘landowner’) syndrome that drives informal property dealing in urban areas like Lagos. But the recently uncovered trend of property dealing under government-erected overhead bridges in the megacity is impunity on steroids.

    Lagos State Government lately announced that it had launched manhunt for illegal landlords who rented out under-bridge apartments to tenants, who make a home in that ‘urban wild’ and even rear children there. The government said it discovered apartments under the Dolphin Estate bridge in Ikoyi area, where tenants pay N250,000 annual rent on each of the 86 partitioned rooms. The apartments were so decidedly promoted for occupancy by illegal landlords that they were equipped with electricity supply. The government has since discovered and cleared out similar structures at Osborne, Apogbon, Obalende, Adeniji-Adele and Ijora under-bridges.

    At a ministerial briefing to mark the first year of the second term of Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and his deputy, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, in office, Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, said the government was in a drive to dislodge miscreants and squatters from pedestrian bridges and under overhead bridges in the state. Operatives of the Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI/LAGESC) agency and officials from the ministry’s Monitoring Enforcement and Compliance (MEC) department, according to him, carried out an operation that unearthed the illegal housing settlement under Dolphin bridge in Ikoyi where space was partitioned into 10×10 and 10×12 apartments, with a container cabin used for illicit activities also discovered. “All the structures have been dismantled and a total of 36 miscreants who lived under the bridges were arrested, while efforts are being intensified to arrest the ring leaders who rented out the under-bridge apartments which also had electricity supply,” he added.

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    The squatter pressure in Lagos is enormous and it is obviously informed by the influx of persons seeking to make a living in the hub of commerce. And the stunning sense of entitlement that could make illegal property promoters convert open spaces under government infrastructure for personal enterprise – not mentioning now allied safety implications – apparently fed on this pressure. But the trend also evidences gross laxity in societal awareness and government oversight that has been the bane of security of law-abiding residents of the megapolis. For instance, how could anyone have constructed all of 86 partitioned apartments under Dolphin bridge without nearby residents raising eyebrow or government getting in the know while the construction was ongoing? It is such collapse of societal awareness that has made disused government structures like the old federal secretariat into a squatters’ haven.

    And so, beyond hunting for the illegal property dealer(s), the Lagos government should interrogate these lapses and pursue measures for making amends.

  •  Is Bode now among the historians?

     Is Bode now among the historians?

    Chief Olabode George, military-era governor of old Ondo State and Lagos PDP buff — is he now among Nigeria’s political historians?  Hardball thought he trained as an engineer, before he decided on a military commission with the Navy?

    Whatever the retired soldier’s current vocation, the way he jumped, both legs, into the Rivers crisis, and started evoking the “wet-ie” spectre of the old wild, wild West was rich.

    On Rivers, he spoke from one side of the mouth as a PDP partisan — no crime.  On the other side, he spoke as a disinterested party — no virtue.

    Was he then hoping his evocation of a past tragedy would suck the unsuspecting into his partisan pitch, masquerading as a disinterested one?  Nice try! 

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    But that was military-era shot-gun thinking, that further ruined Nigeria, after the Khaki boys took over from 1966.  So, Chief George should stop stoking apocalypse, real or imagined.  There’s nothing in Rivers the rule of law, or even sincere political dialogue, can’t solve.  Politics is all about settling disputes and solving problems.

    Still, the George take is about uniform fare on the Rivers conflict, on both sides of the partisan divide —  so much noise, yet so little progress.

    Make no mistake: the Wike and Fubara sides are pulling one another into an avoidable ditch, from which both would emerge mutually crushed.  Unfortunately, the so-called Rivers elders — with Chief Edwin Clark, the “Ijaw leader”, jumping in as unfazed Ijaw partisan, though he is from Delta State — are more interested in winning an argument, not solving the problem.

    Nyesom Wike’s ever roiling and combative self isn’t helping matters. His who-is-not-for-us-is-against us, no-taking-of-prisoners stance has alienated the likes of Dr. Peter Odili, the original godfather of Rivers politics, since 1999.

    Governor Sim Fubara’s penchant to go for broke too, with especial love for brazen outlawry, under the tragic delusion that his gubernatorial office could ride roughshod over other democratic organs of state, and stay alive to tell the story, will ultimately damage his case — and person — when the chips are down.

    Wike just gloated that it was his duty to goad Fubara into actions that could well destroy the governor — actions like serious constitutional breaches as pulling down the Rivers Parliament, not subjecting his spending to parliamentary approval, and all but threatening to abolish parliament, with the grave delusion that he can run the government with three hand-picked parliamentary cronies, out of 32.

    These indeed are dire parliamentary crimes, which no political bluster can soften. But Wike too tragically deludes himself he’d be politically alive to tell the story, should Fubara crumble.

    So, let Chief George and other PDP partisans duly caution Fubara. Wike’s hybrid PDP-APC friends too should tell him some stark home truth.  Wike, as FCT minister, cannot pocket Rivers anymore than Fubara can govern with three law makers.

    Those who genuinely love Rivers must speak up and work towards ending this mutual lunacy.  It’s time for true Rivers elders to roar — not those now busy playing political ping-pong with the future of their people.