The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Logo drama

    Logo drama

    It’s an interesting drama about a state’s logo, with twists and turns that may well continue following a call for new designs by Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke after public rejection of a design unveiled on April 17.

    In a statement, the governor said, “As a listening leader, I have asked that we open the change of logo to more public input,” through a one-week contest from April 19 to April 26.  The best design would be announced on April 28, and unveiled on April 30; and the best three designers would be rewarded.

    Curiously, the statement said, “Those submitting a design are to take into account the prototype logo in terms of its contents and style.”  This condition amounts to imposing unnecessary restrictions on creativity. Defining the limits of entries, in terms of “contents and style,” defeats the essence of calling for new designs. The government’s insistence on the sanctity of the “contents and style” of the rejected design suggests that it may not want a new design but a design that looks new. 

    Details of the rejected design include a Circle, Osun River, Brown Agricultural Soil, Mountains, Ori Olokun, Rays of light (Imole in Yoruba), and Natural Resources.

    The Osun State House of Assembly, in July 2023, repealed the state Anthem, Crest and Flag Law 2012 and replaced it with a new law, which provided the context for the introduction of a new logo for the state.

    Adeleke had described the rejected logo as “a signal of rebirth,” which “meaningfully represents our historic anthem, our values, and our tradition.” He also said it was “a tool to market the state at home and abroad.”

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    Two opposition parties in the state were reported to have criticised the logo.   The Allied Peoples Movement (APM) described it as a waste of taxpayers’ money, and the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) called it “an embarrassment to us in Osun.”  The criticisms were not necessarily politically motivated. Governor Adeleke is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Indeed, the governor’s call for new designs suggests acceptance of the criticisms.

    This is not the first time that the state’s logo has created controversy. In a release signed by its state chairman, Dr Tosin Odeyemi, the NNPP presented a history of the state’s logo. The party said: “We all spoke against it when the administration of Rauf Aregbesola designed a new logo for the state and abandoned the one in use before he came into office as governor.” Osun State was created in August 1991, and Aregbesola was governor from 2010 to 2018. 

    It remains to be seen which design would be unveiled to replace the rejected logo, and whether it would be acceptable to the people. 

  • Yoruba ‘nesan’!

    Yoruba ‘nesan’!

    The speed of light, with which Prof. Banji Akintoye and Sunday Igboho denied the Ibadan miscreants, claiming to be Yoruba “nesan” activists, was simply amusing! 

    Before you could call “Odua!”, both distanced themselves from the arch-folly of these romantics, who had wished to “capture” the Oyo State Government Secretariat, with the special thrill of hoisting their Yoruba Nation flag on the Ibadan Parliament building of the old glorious West, now serving as the Oyo State House of Assembly.

    And after that, what?

    Again, the haste with which the eminent and respected professor of history distanced himself from that comedy was something else.  Yet, his discomfiture was fit rebuke for intellectualizing for stark guys, who could hardly relate.

    Igboho himself was the first victim, serving as happy battling ram, to batter the “Fulani” president, plotting to enslave his beloved Yorubaland, with Fulani “terrorists”!  Why, a charged Igboho once told himself and ilk, while on a raid of the Idiroko border with

    Benin Republic, that he was defending “Yoruba border”!

    But a hard stint in Benin Republic jail, complete with ugly skirmishes with DSS that preceded his fleeing to that country, seems to have reset his brain to cold reality. 

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    Before then, however, he was even captured on video, bragging, to raucous applause, that he would “kill” a “senator” for Igboho’s “Yoruba nesan” cause.  That “senator” is now president of the Federal Republic. 

    Igboho is wiser now — for neither that subversive roar, nor the good professor’s free-wheeling “Yoruba Nation” theorizing, helped Igboho in his Benin odyssey, though that lobby made a face-saving claim they helped to spring Igboho. Maybe they did.

    But after Igboho, these brain-washed souls trying to seize the Oyo Government Secretariat, after another batch had earlier created a public nuisance at Ojota, that popular bus stop, on Ikorodu Road, in Lagos.  When will this comedy stop?

    By the way, under what mandate, popular or closet, is Yoruba Nation or Odua Republic, beyond the whims and caprices of its sponsors?  How can a tiny minority impose their racket on the majority, that continues to look on with quaint bemusement?

    Is it not clear to everyone now that Nigeria only has two tribes — the poor and the rich — and that the rich had better sort out the poor, lest the poor gobble up the rich in no time?

    Let the Yoruba Nation theorists take a cue from the mess in the South East. Chinua Achebe, storied author and father of the African novel, nevertheless exited with historical bile in his final parting shot: There Was A Country. 

    That bile woke up the buried demons of Biafra, epitomized by a rash Nnamdi Kanu, who has since run himself into a ditch.

    The message is clear: those on the departure lounge should not create needless future hazards for uncritical youths, at the start of their lives.  A word is enough for the wise.

  • Unattractive attractions

    Unattractive attractions

    Notably, the issue of poor maintenance culture came up during the recent visit of the Minister of Tourism, Lola Ade-John, to some tourist sites in Epe, Lagos State, including Oju Alaro Shrine, the Marina Waterfront, Palace of Oloja of Epe and some iconic colonial-era buildings.

     The minister said the local government “must work on sensitising the locals to always ensure these sites are neat and tidy; it won’t attract tourists if they are left like this.” Her observation spoke volumes about the unattractiveness of the sites she visited.

    According to her, “Epe is a beautiful place to be, with beautiful beaches, mangroves, seafoods and all; these are what the backpackers want to see.” However, “the sites must be made neat,” she stressed.

    This should be a wake-up call to tourism authorities in Lagos State. It was odd that these tourist attractions looked unkempt. It is thought-provoking that the minister highlighted this oddity.

    The minister also urged the Lagos State government to build a proper fish market that would attract tourists, saying she “was surprised to see lots of foreigners and different types of seafoods” when she visited the fish market. “I think the state government needs to build a more attractive fish market to further promote tourism, so that people can travel here to see and buy,” she added. 

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    The Lagos State Commissioner for Tourism, Arts and Culture, Toke Benson-Awoyinka, and the Special Adviser to the Governor on Tourism, Arts and Culture, Idris Aregbe, should be concerned about the minister’s observations. When they assumed duties in September 2023, Benson-Awoyinka was reported saying they were “ready to work from day one and tourism is about to witness a level of development never seen before.”   Epe’s unkempt tourist attractions are a clear contradiction.

    Tourism is said to be a cardinal aspect of the Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration’s T.H.EM.E.S agenda. But the picture of unattractive tourist attractions in Epe suggests that the administration needs to do much more than it is doing to develop tourism in the state.

    Interestingly, Epe is the site of the Lagos Film City project, a collaboration between the Lagos State government and Del-York International Group, which promises to change the tourism narrative in the state phenomenally.  Sanwo-Olu, in October 2023, launched the proposed $100 million, 100-hectare, one-stop movie production hub in Ejinrin, Epe.

    A state government involved in such an ambitious game-changing tourism-related project should not be found wanting regarding the maintenance of tourist sites.

  • Bobrisky: Beneath the surface

    Bobrisky: Beneath the surface

    His sensational trial and imprisonment showed that things are not always what they seem. Idris Okuneye, the controversial cross-dresser and transgender man popularly known as Bobrisky, probably had it coming in a largely conservative Nigerian society where his gender reinvention is considered deviant, unacceptable, even punishable. 

    Police spokesperson Muyiwa Adejobi said in a recent TV interview: “I have not read anywhere where cross-dressing is an offence in Nigeria.” That was his response to calls for the arrest and prosecution of cross-dressers in some quarters, prompted mainly by the activities of Bobrisky, who can be described as Nigeria’s most visible cross-dresser.  Recently, he was controversially announced the ‘Best Dressed Female’ at a movie premiere in Lagos. 

    His dramatic arrest and arraignment for naira abuse was not unlawful.  The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act 2007 (As amended) stipulates that “spraying of, dancing or marching on the naira or any note issued by the Bank during social occasions or otherwise howsoever shall constitute abuse, and defacing of the naira or such note shall be punishable under the law by fines or imprisonment or both.” Abuse of the currency attracts a penalty of not less than six months imprisonment or a fine of not less than N50,000 or both.

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    He was charged with tampering with N400,000 by spraying the same while dancing at a social event at the IMAX Circle Mall, Lekki, Lagos on March 24; and doing the same thing with N50,000 at another social event, between July and August 2023 at Aja Junction, Ikorodu. He was also charged with tampering with N20,000 by spraying the same while dancing at White Steve Event Hall, Ikeja in December 2023; and doing the same thing with N20,000 at another event in Oniru, Victoria Island.

    Pleading guilty, Bobrisky said he was “not aware of the law,” described himself as “a social media influencer, with five million followers,” and offered to help “educate’ his followers against naira abuse, if he was “given a second chance.”

    Justice Abimbola Awogboro of the Federal High Court, Lagos, was unimpressed; and, on April 12, sentenced him to six months in prison without a fine option.  “His will serve as a deterrent to others,” the judge said.

    In February, Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of the Federal High Court, Lagos, convicted actress Oluwadarasimi Omoseyin, and sentenced her to six months in prison with a N300,000 fine option for spraying and stepping on naira notes at a party in Lagos. 

    Curiously, a traditional ruler, the Olu of Owode Egba, Ogun State, Oba Kolawole Sowemimo, showed in a viral video adorning a popular Fuji musician, Wasiu Ayinde, with new N1,000 notes shaped like garlands, during the celebration of his 13th coronation anniversary, in January, was not treated like a naira abuser by the law. 

    Bobrisky abused the naira. But his punishment, though not unlawful, may well have been influenced by something beneath the surface.

  • Phantom Pete, phantom thoughts

    Phantom Pete, phantom thoughts

    The great Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the most enduring political figure of his era, if not of all time in Nigeria, spoke of the deep calling to the deep. 

    In the case of Peter Obi and the belaboured Labour Party (LP), it’s a case of phantom calling to phantom.  There’s simply an expiry date for mutual self-delusion.

    When the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC)-LP “rofo-rofo” fracas broke out, Phantom Pete declared he wouldn’t die with LP, if NLC-LP wouldn’t sort out each other. 

    For effect, Obi brandished his Obidients, his cyber-family that though growled thunder and brimstone in cyberspace, could only push him to a third position in the 2023 presidential sweepstakes — an over-performance he’s now celebrating as if he trumped everyone.  Phantom!

    Why, even Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the grand fiction writer, once made the grand fictive announcement that Pete the Phantom won the 2023 election, somewhere in America!  The irony was totally lost on her.  Between fiction and phantom, there is but a thin line!

    Anyway, that appears eons ago, when crushing defeat was too much for doughty delusion.  Then, both LP and NLC blindly bought into that delusion, so much so that Joe Ajaero, to push Obi’s cause, but hiding behind worker demands, was ready to go on subversive strikes.

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    But now, things have fallen apart.  The LP falcon can no longer hear the NLC falconer.  Mere anarchy is loosed upon their world, as the political comrades fall upon selves as some rabble under a curse!  Even then, both sides are pathetic, desperately clinging to their phantom trophies.

    A sly Julius Abure of LP, after rewarding self with a phantom four-year fresh term, hollered — in any case, LP did — that Obi had his party’s 2027 ticket, unless he refused.

    A rallying Joe Ajaero, vide the NLC Political Commission — voice of Jacob, hand of Esau? — serenaded Obi as “Leader of the party”, to push its corrupt-speak against Abure (accused of not-so-tidy party account), to get its own back on the one who just condemned Ajaero to hollering from outside! 

    Did Obi get early wind of the Ajearo-NLC latest cant?  No one can say.  But it’s strange that one who threatened to abandon LP to its fate days earlier, just made a u-turn to abide by the belaboured party!

    When Phantom Obi meets Phantom LP — the election-season harlot that nevertheless kids itself as the ideological real deal in an ideology-vacuum polity — what’s the assurance both wouldn’t have vanished, as a political force, way before 2027?

    It’s the natural way of phantom calling to phantom!  

  • Return of ‘the saint’

    Return of ‘the saint’

    Time, they say, heals all things. Also, time makes atonement for the worst of violations. That seems the case with former Kano State Commissioner for Land and Physical Planning, Adamu Aliyu-Kibiya, who was sacked last September for issuing death threat against judges but is freshly nominated for reappointment to the cabinet.

    Kano State Governor Abba Yusuf lately nominated a son of his political godfather and former state governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, for appointment as a commissioner. He presented the name of Mustapha Rabiu-Kwankwaso and three others including Aliyu to the state House of Assembly for consideration as members of his cabinet. The other nominees are Shehu Aliyu-Yanmedi and Abduljabbar Garko. They have since been confirmed by the state assembly.

    Aliyu got the boot last year after he issued a death threat against tribunal judges that was so brazen even the governor, who at the time was embattled by litigation over his mandate, could not let it slide. Speaking at a protest and prayer session organised by the state government towards securing favourable outcome for the governor’s New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) at the election tribunal, Aliyu threatened that the judges would pay with their lives should they obtain bribes to pervert justice against the governor. He also threatened security breaches in Kano State of worse proportion than neighbouring Kaduna, Katsina and Zamfara were experiencing.

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    The official had said: “I am sending this message to the tribunal judges. Any judge that allows himself to be used and collect bribes and pass judgment that is not right, we want to tell him he must choose between his life and the bribe money he collected. We are promising you (our supporters), we are receiving your complaints. The votes you cast for his excellency (Governor Yusuf) will not go in vain unless we lose our lives or Kano State will fall.” He added: “Another message for the leaders. You have seen the conflict (banditry) in Zamfara, Kaduna, and Katsina. I swear because of this governorship seat, everyone will die. The conflict that will start in Kano will be more deadly than the ones in those states and Borno.”

    It was against the backdrop of Aliyu’s threats that the tribunal judges held back from in-person delivery of their verdict in Kano, and rather handed the verdict down online. The threats were also embarrassing enough to the governor that he disclaimed Aliyu and sacked him from his cabinet. A lot of water has since then passed under the bridge, as they say. The tribunal and appeal court invalidated Yusuf’s mandate but the Supreme Court restored it to him.

    It is understandable in the circumstance that the governor wants Aliyu back, since he advocated his interest. But his qualification for reappointment is questionable, since he can’t suddenly become saintly after those fiendish comments that he neither retracted nor apologised for. He should first do the needful.

  • Japa symphony

    Japa symphony

    No fewer than 15,000 to 16,000 doctors left Nigeria for ‘greener pastures’ in the last five years, the Federal Government recently confirmed. But it said it was making efforts to expand the training scheme for the medics and motivate those who choose to stay back and serve their country.

    Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Ali Pate, lamented during an appearance on a Channels Television programme that the country has witnessed a generation of young doctors, health workers, tech entrepreneurs and other professionals in the medical sector abandoning the country for better opportunities abroad. He said: “In the last five years, the country lost about 15,000 to 16,000 doctors to the Japa syndrome, while about 17,000 were transferred. There are about 300,000 health professionals working in Nigeria today in all cadres. I am talking about doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, laboratory scientists, and others. We did an assessment and discovered we have 85,000 to 90,000 registered Nigerian doctors. Not all of them are in the country though. Some are in the diaspora, especially in the US and UK. But there are 55,000 licensed doctors in the country.”

    According to the minister, the bane of the health system in Nigeria isn’t just the low number of personnel, but also their distribution across the country. “The issue overall, in terms of health professionals, is that they are not enough. They are insufficient in terms of the skill mix. Can you believe most of the highly skilled professional doctors are in Lagos, Abuja and a few urban centres? There is a huge distribution issue,” he said, as he acknowledged that the doctor-to-patient ratio in the country was both inadequate and disproportionate. “The population of doctors overall is about 7,600 in Lagos and 4,700 or thereabouts in Abuja… There are huge distributional issues and there are, of course, opportunities even for some of those who have been trained to get into the market,” he added.

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    Pate’s appraisal was more factual about the Nigerian situation compared with the bluster by a trained medical doctor and former Labour and Employment Minister, Dr. Chris Ngige, who once said Nigeria had a surplus of doctors and those among them desiring to relocate were encouraged to so do. But Pate too stressed the pull-factor more than he acknowledged the push factor. He said the ‘japa’ syndrome was a global phenomenon not restricted to Nigeria. “Other countries don’t have enough, they’re asking to take more. It is not only in Nigeria. It is happening in India, the Philippines and other parts of Africa,” he stated.

    That may be largely true. But what is peculiar to Nigeria are poor working conditions that force medics to seek opportunities anywhere else but stay in the country. That is an issue government needs to address.  

    •First published April 1, 2024

  • Silence and lawlessness

    Silence and lawlessness

    Why has the Nigerian military not responded to public criticism of the lawless actions of its personnel against Segun Olatunji, editor of FirstNews? Soldiers invaded his Abule-Egba home in Lagos State, on March 15, and took him away. The military denied knowledge of his whereabouts, and detained him for two weeks under harsh conditions before eventually releasing him following public and professional outcry.

    They flew him to Abuja blindfolded, and put him in a cell.  According to him, “At one point, one of the officers came and tightened the cuffs on my right hand and leg. I was there groaning in pain, and it was that way for three days.”

    What did he do to deserve such torture?  He said they asked him about certain stories published by FirstNews, an online medium, concerning the chief of defence  intelligence and the chief of staff to the president.

    Even after the International Press Institute (IPI) found out that the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) was responsible for his detention and torture, according to the secretary-general of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), Iyobosa Uwugiaren, “they lied that the journalist was not in their custody. Yet our sources were telling us we needed to act fast to save our colleague.”

    Olatunji said his captors took him “somewhere under the bridge in Abuja,” where they released him, on March 29, after asking him to call someone in the capital city “who can guarantee my release.”

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    Following the silence of the military authorities in the face of public outrage over the incident, several media groups and civil society organisations, on April 7, jointly issued a 14-day ultimatum to the Federal Government to publicly apologise to and compensate Olatunji. In a statement, they condemned “this gestapo-like, unlawful and unconstitutional treatment of a journalist under a constitutional democracy simply for doing his job.”

    Also, they demanded “a speedy, public, transparent and independent investigation into this act of barbarism,” and that “all persons within and outside the military who are found to have been connected with this unacceptable violation of the rights of the journalist and the constitution… should be prosecuted before the appropriate court and punished to the full extent of the law.”

    The signees vowed to “pursue all available mechanisms at the national, regional and international levels to ensure compliance with our demands,” if the Federal Government failed to respond positively to their demands within 14 days.

    Silence is an unacceptable response in the circumstances. The military and the Federal Government should not only say something but also do something about this case of lawlessness. 

  • Spin for spin’s sake

    Spin for spin’s sake

    No sooner had youthful Bassirou Diomaye Faye emerged as president of Senegal than two opposition figures indulged in rhapsody to project their most innate delusions.

    It’s spin for spin’s sake.

    Obiageli Ezekwesili, the Obasanjo-era Madam Due Process whose presidential run nevertheless collapsed over alleged non-accountable election funding, waxed poetic over a people deciding to throw off their yoke, and no power on earth stopping them.

    The question is: who are the burden?  Those, like President Bola Tinubu, that staked their entire political life over what they believe in; and eventually landed the big prize after winning a challenging election?

    Or yo-yo folks like Oby — activist today, politician tomorrow, neither-nor the next day — who just make a din in the polity to stay relevant, hiding behind a finger to cover their partisan biases?

    Why, even Atiku Abubakar, the pathetic and the peripatetic one, on a long, long quest for marabout-decreed but so far abortive presidency, even jerked awake to call the opposition to unite — behind him? — to vote out the current ruling order.

    To be sure, it’s a democracy.  Such rallies can’t be a crime.  President Tinubu and his APC, after all, routed the PDP from power, after its ruinous 16 years,  by uniting the opposition. 

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    But that’s where that comparison ends. Beyond that point, it’s a travesty, coming from the likes of Atiku and Oby, for — let them posture anyhow they wish — they were part of the old rot.

    Atiku was not only part of the Obasanjo seedy foundation that eventually sank the PDP, Oby was part of that government too.  All Atiku and his principal had to offer, post-power, were personal trophies — the doctrine of democracy for self-settlement? — not any worthwhile legacy of public assets. 

    The privatization of their era was a racket; and one of the most galling of it all was the Power sector deforms — sorry reforms — which still rocks the nation till today. 

    So why would anyone queue behind Atiku for salvation, when he was part of the past rot under PDP?  Also, Oby Ezekwesili’s Ministry of Education nearly pawned the Federal Government Colleges to regime friends and cronies, under the so-called “reforms”, but for trenchant public protest.  So, where is the credibility of both?

    By the way, this latest grandstanding on Senegal is mischief, sustained by ignorance.  Mischief, because both Atiku and Ezekwesili know — or should know — they were comparing apples with oranges; and ignorance, because that mischief can only be propelled by supporter ignorance and gullibility. 

    Faye’s ascendancy isn’t new, though it’s the most dramatic in Senegal just yet — a 44-year-old opposition candidate knocking out the ruling order’s candidate at first ballot.

    But the principle that fired that triumph is well-neigh routine in Senagal, from the time of second president, Abdou Diouf. The same opposition banana peel on which Diouf slipped, replacing him with Abdoulaye Wade, was same for Wade, replacing him with Macky Sall, and same for Sall, replacing him with Faye. 

    If the youthful Faye tries the same rascality as his predecessors, he himself will slip off, you can be sure.  Since the exit of Diouf, Senegal’s polls had been opposition harvest. 

    That has deepened Senegal’s democracy, aside from its record of not ever having the misfortune of any deluded junta rule.  Nigeria is a stark difference.  

  • Killing in the law’s name

    Killing in the law’s name

    An Nsukka-based lawyer, Elias Ugwu, was recently killed by personnel of the Kogi State Police Command in circumstances the command described as mistaken identity. But blame for the mishap seems thrust entirely on the victim, with no consideration for any form of recompense for his survivors. That is why Hardball is here raising questions.

    Elias Ugwu, 60, was in Dekina council area of Kogi State to pay ransom and retrieve his abducted cousin, Alexander Ugwu, when he ran into a police ambush that shot at his car and inflicted on him injuries that resulted in his death. The cousin, Alexander, 53, a businessman in Benue State, was abducted 2nd March in herdsmen’s ambush and four million naira ransom demanded from family members for his release. It was that ransom Elias, in company with a friend he enlisted, was in Kogi environs to deliver and retrieve his cousin. He managed to accomplish the mission and the three were returning 9th March when Elias was cut down by shots from a police team that mistook the party for armed robbers.

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    Kogi police command, in a statement, explained that its men were in the area in response to reports from villagers that strange faces were sighted in a bush near Alade village roaming around for two days, thereby causing a stir in the community. Command spokesman William Aya, a Superintendent of Police, said the police acted against the backdrop of robbery attacks on some banks in Anyigba on 7th March, and with the villagers saying the strange faces in a particular car were asking for direction around the place where two vehicles and two motorcycles abandoned by the bank robbers were recovered. “The operatives promptly swung into action… When they sighted the car already described by the villagers, they waved down the driver to stop but he, instead, zoomed off. In a bid to stop the car, shots were fired at the tyres of the car, which brought it to a halt,” the statement said. Thereafter, it was discovered that the car conveyed persons who identified themselves and explained their mission. But the driver (Elias) had already suffered injuries and was rushed to hospital, where he gave up the ghost. “The Commissioner of Police…extends his condolences to the family of the deceased over the unfortunate incident, which was avoidable if they had stopped when they were waved down by the police who were with their patrol vehicle at the scene,” the statement added.

    One could ask whether someone who just rescued a family member abducted in an ambush would readily oblige another ambush, which though set by the police could not be so easily ascertained. The police were also informed by the villagers that the strange faces were asking for direction, and one could ask whether armed robbers typically ask for direction in an area where they operated. In short, the police could have found a less lethal manner of intercepting the vehicle. Now that an innocent lawyer has been killed, it shouldn’t be enough to just express condolences, his family should be maximally compensated.