The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Inmates and rice timetable

    Inmates and rice timetable

    Evidently, it was a sign of the times. Inmates at the Jos Custodial Centre of the Nigerian Correctional Service had a taste of the hard times outside prison when they were told that rice would now be served twice a week. They were used to eating rice four times a week.

    The unpleasant news was the result of the high cost of rice, among other foods, which has contributed to the high cost of living in the country where it is a staple food. Being in prison has not saved them from the hardship outside.

    The information hit them hard. They reacted violently, and refused to return to their cells. Prison officials had to use tear gas, and fired warning shots into the air, to get the situation under control.       

    The Controller of Corrections Plateau State Command, Raphael Ibinuhi, painted a picture of the incident that happened on March 1. He told journalists: “By the time the inmates were called this morning for briefing, they were not happy that the period for consumption of rice has been reduced from four times to two in a week and expressed dissatisfaction with the development.

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    “I instructed the officer in charge to return them to their cells but instead they became violent and started throwing stones at the personnel. In response and to keep the situation from getting out of hand, we had to resort to firing tear gas canisters and gunshots which enabled us to return the inmates to the cells. Some of the personnel sustained minor injuries from the stones thrown at them but no inmates were injured as the situation was brought under control.”

    Was that the end of the matter? Will the inmates adjust to the new rice timetable and make no further trouble over it? 

    The Jos Custodial Centre has 1,064 inmates, comprising 1,035 males and 19 females. There are 647 males and 14 females awaiting trial. The convicted inmates are 205 males and four females. Those on death row are 20.

    The numbers of inmates awaiting trial and inmates on death row at the custodial centre say a lot about prison congestion in the country. In particular, a situation in which inmates awaiting trial are far more than convicted inmates calls for a review of the country’s criminal justice system. 

    Ultimately, the incident at the custodial centre should serve as a lesson to the authorities on the worsening cost-of-living crisis in the country, and the urgent need to deal with it.

  • Double-edged sword of ECOWAS

    Double-edged sword of ECOWAS

    Two Saturdays ago, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) at its extraordinary session in Abuja announced the partial lifting of sanctions against Guinea, Niger Republic, Burkina Faso and Mali. The heads of state and government cited the Lent period and Ramadan to justify their softening. It is unclear what sanctions are left after the partial lifting of sanctions, or by what margin the vote to lift sanctions was carried among the heads of state. What is undisputable is that ECOWAS leaders have climbed down from their high horses. They were not the offenders in this stalemate, but they have demonstrated no stomach for a fight, the kind of fight levied against them by the newly created Alliance of Sahel States. Yet they are the ones making overtures and eating humble pie. There were no reports of subterranean moves by the excommunicated countries to reach an understanding with the regional body, and no indication that a deal was in the offing. But perhaps there were backdoor negotiations going on. All that is known, however, is that the outcome has benefited one side, and left the other side with egg on its face. ECOWAS has unilaterally and virtually ended most of the sanctions it imposed without getting any notable concession in return from the obdurate military heads of state of the affected countries.

    There are suggestions that the sanctions were also hurting the rest of ECOWAS, not just the outcasts, or that it was a grudging acceptance that sanctions have never worked. The new dimension of establishing another sub-regional body under Russian gaze instead of French tutelage may also have panicked the regional body. However, the lifting of sanctions is certain to have long-term consequences for ECOWAS. It may serve to arrest the centrifugal tendencies in the group in the short run, but it will be a double-edged sword that cuts and wounds both ways, delivering few benefits. This appeasement will hurt the sub-region by encouraging military adventurism, rewarding disobedience to regional rules, and indicating that coupists would no longer face retribution for rascality. ECOWAS may have shown itself flexible in order to prevent fracturing an organisation founded in 1975, but what becomes of the laws binding the region together? Last month, former Nigerian military head of state Yakubu Gowon wrote a letter to the heads of state of ECOWAS, coaxing them to take steps to reunite the sub-region and reverse the fragmentation of ECOWAS. They appear to have heeded him. But of what use is peace at any cost, when it was the sanctioned members that sacked elected governments by force and violated the rules and regulations of the regional body?

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    ECOWAS will now have to wait to see whether the errant military rulers will take their olive branch. But the embattled military rulers will find no incentive in taking the regional body’s offer, for after their untidy and amateurish exit, they have become used to no one breathing down their necks. They will suffer from withdrawal symptoms should they return to ECOWAS, and may even be tempted to dictate terms. If they deign to take the olive branch, they may even demand to attend meetings in civil dress. There is no rule they won’t violate, and no aspiration they won’t covet. ECOWAS is made up of 15 members. Only three members have conspired to upend the tranquility of the regional organisation and called its bluff, almost without consequence. Instead of the one-sided rapprochement ECOWAS has embarked upon, it would have been better had the group looked inwards, reinvented the regional body and turned it into a showpiece. There is of course the uncomfortable factor of some of the borders being virtually artificial and tough to police, such as the Nigeria-Niger Republic borders, but there are ways to manage those kind of problems without endangering the unity and credibility of the organisation. ECOWAS may yet rue the appeasement it has embarked upon in the name of Lent and Ramadan and other sentimental considerations.

  • Ajaero hot and cold

    Ajaero hot and cold

    Joe Ajaero and his Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) keep blowing hot and cold — confused comrades?  Perhaps. 

    You can’t be lifting a strike but thundering another ultimatum!  How do you reason with a guy whose trademark is endless threats?

    The other time, they declared a three-day total and comprehensive strike — only to scramble back for some redemption to save face, when it was clear the NLC hot heads couldn’t sustain their fury in the streets.

    This latest one, between February 26 and 27, was to last two days — two days of Aluta bliss in the streets.  But lo!  After only one day, Ajaero and co scampered off.  The man Joe decreed a slew of press conferences, in lieu of street mass action!

    It’s interesting: each time Ajaero’s NLC ended up in own ditch, the Trade Union Congress (TUC), the office-suite equivalent to the factory-floor NLC, had stayed away: yet and yet again showing the quality of own introspection against NLC’s rashness.

    Still, TUC would ever rue being dragooned into Ajaero’s Imo misadventure, when some partisan mob beat him black and blue, for his doomed effort to mix-up NLC with Labour Party (LP), his partisan sweetheart, in the gubernatorial election, in which sitting governor and APC candidate, Hope Uzodinma, hopelessly routed everyone to earn re-election.

    For its pains, Ajaero just told TUC that NLC wasn’t bound to carry it along for its Aluta paroxysms.  Ajaero and his NLC sure know how to burn bridges, not caring a hoot about needing the same on their return trip!  A hard, if fitting lesson though, for TUC: always steer clear of Ajaero’s periodic and hardly thought-through Aluta frenzy.

    It’s just unfortunate: now that Labour centres should band together and extract the best deals for workers in challenging times, Ajaero seems to fiddle all away without much thinking.  That could well be a heavy workers’ burden.

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    Then, came the presidential barb, from the brand new Red Rail Line corridor in Lagos — a rather crowing glory to a governor’s — now president — 21-year dream for a multi-modal Lagos transport.

    President Bola Tinubu lobbed — a Molotov cocktail? — at organised Labour’s (read Ajaero’s) sense of balance.  Labour had gone on strike four times during his nine-month-old presidency, which he declared a national record. If Labour wanted to play politics — again, read Ajaero as LP “mole” in NLC — they should prep themselves for 2027!

    Ouch!  Was that politic?  Maybe not.  Was it a fact?  Starkly so. 

    Just say it’s a grim primer in Labour wasting its ace — in a long, titanic struggle — over piffles.  And that from a president that scrambled to meet Labour, to avert its first threat at strikes! 

    What did Chinua Achebe say again — the foolish antelope that danced itself lame before the real dance began?  That can’t be the best position for workers!

  • Morality and poll circus

    Morality and poll circus

    Pakistan isn’t such a prominent country in world affairs, but its recent national and provincial elections threw up lessons that are instructive to politicians as well as election managers across the world, Nigeria inclusive.

     Ever heard a politician formally declared winner in a poll rejecting the victory on a self-confessed claim that the victory was tainted because the votes were rigged in his favour? That was what happened in the Pakistani elections where a politician who won provincial seat in the commercial hub of Karachi gave it up, saying it was rather won by an opponent whose votes were understated by the electoral body. The February 8th elections were marred by accusations of rigging against independent candidates backed by jailed ex-prime minister Imran Khan. The former prime minister and cricket star has been in jail since last August and his party, PTI, was disqualified from the ballot, forcing PTI-backed candidates to run as independents. But despite the hurdles, voters overwhelmingly turned out across the country to cast votes in favour of Khan’s cause.

    Following his being declared winner of a provincial assembly seat in the city of Karachi, Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman of the Jamaat-e-Islami party rejected the verdict, saying another contender backed by PTI party had secured more votes but his tally was understated. “If anyone wants to make us win in an illegitimate manner, we will not be accepting that,” Rehman said at a press conference, adding: “Public opinion should be respected, let the winner win and let the loser lose. No one should get anything extra.” He argued that while he polled some 26,000 votes, PTI-backed Independent Saif Bari received 31,000 votes that were declared as 11,000 votes. Pakistani electoral authorities rejected his allegations, saying the country had laws and systems to investigate specific complaints.

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    Meanwhile, reports cited a senior Pakistani official confessing complicity in manipulating results in the country’s elections. Liaquat Ali Chatha, a top administrative official in Punjab Province, said he would resign from his position and turn himself in to the police. “We converted losers into winners, reversing margins of 70,000 votes of independent candidates for 13 national parliament seats,” he stated at a news conference, apparently referring to votes moved from independent candidates aligned with Khan. He fingered other high-ranking officials as being part of the scheme, saying he was unable to sleep at night after “stabbing the country in its back.”

    These are confessionals that should pose a moral challenge to political actors and administrative officials everywhere to similarly toe the path of honour in their dealings. It will be the day, for instance, when Nigerian politicians begin to proactively reject tainted poll victories and when officials renounce hideous plots to pervert the electoral process. It will be the day!

  • Too slow

    Too slow

    How long will it take the Lagos State government to replace the elevator at the doctors’ quarters, General Hospital, Odan, Lagos Island, which caused the death of Vwaere Diaso, a medical doctor, on the evening of August 1, 2023?
    She was in the elevator when it crashed from the 10th floor to the ground floor. A graduate of Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State, she died two weeks before the completion of her one-year housemanship.
    At the time, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu had reassuringly initiated “a thorough investigation into the cause of the mechanical failure.”
    Last week, Prof. Akin Abayomi, the state’s Commissioner for Health, struggled to explain why the elevator had not been replaced. He was reported saying, “We need to determine the root cause of the elevator malfunction. Is it a mechanical flaw within the elevator or a structural issue? This investigation required some time to ensure that we made an informed decision.”
    It’s been six months since the tragedy happened at the state-owned hospital, and the commissioner’s explanation was unconvincing. He also said that a contract had been awarded to “a reputable construction company” for the installation of a new elevator, and “work on the contract has commenced.” According to him, the state government’s goal “is not merely to install a new elevator but to safeguard the lives of our medical professionals.”
    His explanation came a month after it was reported that doctors at the quarters had to take the stairs to their apartments because a new elevator was yet to be installed.

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    Also, in January, five months after the tragedy, the state’s Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Gbenga Omotoso, and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Olusegun Ogboye, were reported saying the contract to replace the elevator and renovate the building had been awarded to contractors.
    But, according to a report, “no sign of renovation or billboards proposing the beginning of renovation on the premises could be seen at the time.”
    If the explanation by the Commissioner for Health was meant to be an update on the situation at the doctors’ quarters concerning the replacement of the old elevator, it only showed that the state authorities have been inexcusably slow in installing a new elevator.
    Notably, the Chairman, Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Lagos State zone, Benjamin Olowojebutu, had blamed the Lagos State Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Agency (LASIMRA) for the tragedy. “In that same building, there is no water, there is no light,” he lamented, adding that the agency had failed to respond to multiple complaints, including those about the allegedly faulty elevator that killed Dr Diaso.
    The state’s health authorities must not only provide a new elevator without further delay but also ensure that the doctors’ quarters are befitting.

  • Concert of pariah states

    Concert of pariah states

    The thawing of ECOWAS sanctions against Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, the so called Alliance of Sahel States, echoes a Yoruba dismissal of an errant child.

    When the parent dotes over the child, the appeal is: child, please don’t kill me.  What will I do with myself if you hurt yourself?  But with a wilful and recalcitrant one, the message changes: child, don’t kill yourself!

    In a show of infantile bluffing, the three countries claimed they were “immediately” quitting ECOWAS, the West African regional socio-political bloc.  “With immediate effect!” is the military’s lingo of martial outlawry — so, so impatient with due process or  any tinge of legality. 

    Nigerians should know!  Wasn’t that what the military used to destroy the federal civil service, and reduce it to today’s shadow of itself, even when an impatient junta claimed it was fixing it?

    Kudos to ECOWAS for taking the bluff in its strides. 

    Kudos to the ever-dovish Gen. Yakubu Gowon, an officer-as-gentleman if ever there was one, and the lone surviving founding father of ECOWAS, when it was founded in Lagos in May 1975; and Gen. Gowon was Nigeria’s military Head of State. 

    Kudos too to President Bola Tinubu, ECOWAS Chair, for applying wisdom and maturity, in dealing with deluded tri-juntas, hell bent on ruining their countries — as the political military pretty much did with Nigeria, Ghana, Benin and many other countries, an avoidable condition these countries still grapple with today.

    But now that stringent economic sanctions are relaxed, and the peoples of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger can breathe, ECOWAS should never soften on its core principle: a loud no to military rule.

    The threat to apply military force on Niger to force back democracy was a region ready to do anything — almost anything — to banish the thought of military rule.  Why? 

    When the juntas misgovern their peoples — and it’s a matter of time before they do so — other West African states would take the can, with so-called Big Brother Nigeria lugging more than its fair share, with distressed people swarming its territory for passable life.

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    So, if the trio want to pull out of ECOWAS despite the ECOWAS appeal, let them exercise their military right.  But they must give the adequate one-year notice.  Even if these juntas can overthrow their own municipal laws, they must not be allowed to flout the ECOWAS law governing membership, and allied protocols.

    When the so-called Alliance of Sahel States unravel as the Concert of Pariah States that they really are, Hardball would be here to say: we told you so. 

    The snag though is that they would have again wasted the lives, hopes and aspiration of their peoples — as the political military did here in Nigeria for much too long.

  • Rest in penury

    Rest in penury

    Retirement ideally should be a time of comfortable rest after long years of service to motherland. But for many government pensioners in Nigeria, it is rest in acute penury. The National Union of Pensioners (NUP) has said its members in some states receive pittances ranging between N450 and N1,000 in monthly pension.

    NUP President Godwin Abumisi lamented the profound hardship being experienced by some pensioners amidst the present economic downturn in the country. He spoke against the backdrop of runaway inflation that has created cost of living crisis for many Nigerians and fuelled complaints of food shortages that government at different levels are rallying to mitigate. Addressing a press briefing last week in Abuja, Abumisi called out states where retirees get extreme pittance as pension. “In Nigeria, the government does not think about the poor people. Otherwise, how can pensioners in Enugu receive as low as N450 as monthly pension? We have been saying this and it seems as if we are crying wolf, but it is a reality,” he said, adding that the issue of retirees receiving extremely low pension was particularly prevalent in the Southeast states.

    The difference in pension rates across the country, according to the NUP boss, owed to lack of pension harmonisation as the union had repeatedly canvassed. He said the situation was worsened by the failure of many states to implement the minimum wage reviewed to N18,000 in 2010, and to N30,000 in 2019. Failure by many state governments to implement the reviewed minimum wage translated to pension increases corresponding to the reviews not being effected, Abumisi noted.

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    Last year, the Federal Government signalled interest in raising the pension of retirees. It was also made known that the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission submitted a report on harmonisation of pensions to the government and promised the NUP it would follow up on the report. But till date, neither the promised increase nor harmonisation of pensions has materialised and some states yet pay extreme pittance as was flagged by the NUP boss. Meanwhile, that is even when the pension gets paid. There are many states in huge arrears on pension payment, and there’ve been tales of inhuman treatment to which pensioners are subjected by way of procedures they must go through before accessing their pension.

     For a country yet to emplace a functional social security system for senior citizens, retirees’ experience with pension payment is sheer abuse in place of appreciation they should get for service to the nation. But it is a case of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Governors and lawmakers from same states that penny-pinch with retirees’ benefits leave office after their respective tenure with bogus retirement packages arranged for themselves. Different strokes that reek of injustice.

  • Ogun and Oyekanmi’s murder

    Ogun and Oyekanmi’s murder

    It’s been three months since the tragic murder of Taiwo Oyekanmi, 51, who was an accountant and Director of Finance and Accounts in the office of Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun. He was fatally shot by unidentified armed robbers in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

    The Commissioner of Police in the state, Abiodun Alamutu, had said Oyekanmi was in “a homemade bullion van” with a driver and one other person, and they were returning to their office from a Fidelity Bank branch where they had gone to withdraw money when the armed robbery happened on November 29, 2023.

     The police chief’s description of the vehicle as “a homemade bullion van” suggested that it was not a standard purpose-built bullion van. Indeed, the victim’s elder brother had observed in an interview: “Will you call what my brother was in a bullion van or contraption? There was no risk assessment whatsoever.”

    Also, the mobile police officer, Inspector Rasheed Adegbite, who was supposed to be with the bullion van, was unavailable. The police said he had been arrested for investigation.

    The police boss said the armed robbers’ vehicle had blocked the bullion van, and “five occupants of the vehicle came down, shot at the director and from their vehicle, they brought out a sledgehammer to force the receptacle where the money was kept open and they left with the money.”

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    Oyekanmi, the only fatality, was said to have withdrawn N97.335m from Fidelity Bank and N15m from Sterling Bank. The bullion van was said to be carrying N112.335m at the time of the attack.

    The police suspected that the robbery was “an in-house thing” because the robbers knew they would need a sledgehammer to break the receptacle where the money was kept. “They must have had information that he was going to take a large amount of money from the bank,” Alamutu said.

    The armed robbery exposed poor security arrangements. Governor Abiodun, in a statement issued by his aide, had described Oyekanmi as “a dedicated, truthful, and diligent official,” adding, “It is indeed a colossal loss for our administration.” It can be said that the administration did not do enough to protect him, and possibly prevent the tragedy.

     In December 2023, the Ogun State government announced a reward of N50m for any information that could lead to the arrest of the killers. There hasn’t been any official update on the case since then. None from the state government; none from the police. Are the armed robbers who killed Oyekanmi going to get away with armed robbery and murder?   

  • Soludo boom or bust? 

    Soludo boom or bust? 

    After his historic inauguration on 17 March 2022, the poetic Sam Omatseye serenaded Governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo as the Boom of Anambra Orchestra, on account of his rather enthralling baritone.

    Nearly two years down the line, Soludo seems the Bust of Anambra Confusion — or how would you describe Anambra government agents, behaving like common thugs, wilfully destroying people’s livelihood: newspaper vendors and other low folks, eking out honest living, in harsh economic times — and by a governor that claims to know economics?

    Ba!  How can a former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, now elected to govern a real state, the same that waxes poetic over monetary theories, ever justify such wilful onslaught on value, no matter how low that end of the market is?

    How can Prof. Soludo, PhD Economics, for whatever noble reasons, pounce on newspapers?  What’s the grouse?  The newspaper content?  Newspaper copies as environmental litters?  Or just hare-brained muscle-flexing?

    To those Anambra government agents that reportedly boasted they’d, at all costs, shut out the physical sale of newspapers, how on earth will they curb the online editions — by crashing the websites of all the circulating newspapers?  Ridiculous?

    Besides, which government that lays claims to civilization ever wars with the media and lives happily ever after to tell the tale? 

    No, it’s not because the press is exceptional, as many arrogant journalists often love to mislead themselves.  It’s just because a robust news culture is central to civil rights, which drives the democratic culture.  So, how do you war against that and survive?

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    Worse: mid-term to re-election — or otherwise — Soludo and agents are busy warring against the masses that control the vote (newspaper vendors and sundry poor folks), the Anambra traditional institution (as permanent as elected terms are fleeting) and now, the media!  Does someone, somewhere harbour an electoral suicide wish?

    Governor Soludo had better change tack.  He should caution those hot heads giving his government a bad name.  They are all nameless.  But Soludo would carry the can. 

    Keeping Awka clean need not equate stripping folks of their livelihood.  It could be a win-win for the government and the people, though to be fair some folks could be stiff-necked.  But the government must think deep and hard to get to its goals.

    Let it not be written of Soludo and his avant-garde government that knows the economy and preens civilization but still wars against the media as Don Quixote tilts at windmills! 

    Tragedy would not even cut it!  A word is good for the wise!

  • Women’s revolt

    Women’s revolt

    History has a way of re-echoing. Way back in history, there was the Aba Women’s Riots of 1929 where Igbo women staged a massive revolt against policies of colonial administrators in southeast Nigeria, touching off the most serious challenge to British rule in the history of the colony. There was also the Egba Women’s Revolt of 1947 that was a resistance movement against the imposition of unfair taxation by the colonial government. That protest resulted in four women getting seats in the local council and women taxation was abolished.

    Recently, women were again up in arms, though not in Nigeria and neither against a colonial government. They were at war in Liberia against the new administration of President Joseph Boakai, forcing the resignation of the country’s defense minister just 10 days after being appointed.

    The women believed to be wives of Liberian soldiers erected roadblocks near the capital, Monrovia, and elsewhere in the country early last week for multiple grievances ranging from low salaries and pensions for their husbands, to lack of social security, electricity shortages and corruption within the armed forces. They demanded the resignation of National Defense Minister Prince Johnson, whom they blamed for reduction in the salaries of Liberian soldiers returning from peace missions in Mali. President Boakai was inaugurated in office only at the end of January, and Johnson was appointed thereafter. It didn’t matter to the women that the protested issues predated the new government, and neither were they disposed to allow it the conventional ‘honeymoon’ period before hitting the trenches.

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    They first erected a roadblock on Sunday near a military barracks  on the outskirts of Monrovia en route to the international airport. Agency reports said new roadblocks made of kitchen utensils and makeshift supplies surfaced elsewhere around the country on Monday, forcing Boakai to cancel planned National Army Day celebrations. Drivers stuck in long traffic jams on the road to the airport abandoned their vehicles and continued their journey on foot.

    In his resignation letter, Johnson cited “political and civil disturbances occasioned by protesting women,” saying he wished to preserve peace and security in the country. Meanwhile, the president engaged the soldiers’ wives. He met with their representatives and pledged to interrogate their concerns by setting up a panel. He also ordered immediate restoration of electricity to the affected barracks, and free classes in the school located within the premises. A statement by the presidency said Boakai had accepted Johnson’s resignation, noting that he had “been in office for 20 days only and has taken immediate steps to address some of these issues that have been festering for more than five years.” Well, the women made their point and they got heard. Whoever doubted the coercive power of women!