The Nation Newspaper

Category: Hardball

  • Poor security, tragic murder

    Poor security, tragic murder

    Tragically, the man died. He was fatally shot by unidentified armed robbers in Abeokuta, Ogun State. The victim, Taiwo Oyekanmi, was the Director of Finance and Accounts in the office of Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun.

    The Commissioner of Police in the state, Abiodun Alamutu, 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. “They were supposed to have a police escort, but for certain reasons, the person (policeman) was permitted to travel to attend to some issues,” he stated.

    According to another version, the mobile police officer, Inspector Rasheed Adegbite, who was supposed to be with the bullion van, had travelled to Igbo-Ora in Oyo State the previous day, without permission. The police said he has 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.”

    Oyekanmi, the only fatality, was said to have withdrawn N97.335m from Fidelity Bank and N15m from Sterling Bank.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.

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    Alamutu said: “It was an in-house (thing). We have this feeling because, how did they know that they would need a hammer to break the receptacle?” He also said “they must have had information that he was going to take a large amount of money from the bank.”

    The armed robbery exposed poor security arrangements. It is curious that the absent police escort was not replaced by another guard, and those in the bullion van were without protection.

    Apart from this, it is puzzling that there was only one guard attached to the bullion van, who happened to be unavailable on the day. If he was available, or if someone else had replaced him, would one guard have been able to protect the occupants of the bullion van from the said five attackers? 

    Such an approach to security is not only questionable but also condemnable. It should be reviewed. Also, the state government and the police must ensure that the armed robbers who killed Oyekanmi do not get away with armed robbery and murder.    

  • Show of shame

    Show of shame

    Supremacy battles are indications of rank indiscipline in the armed security services. But these keep recurring among Nigeria’s security agencies for reasons that beggar belief.  That was the case with the recent faceoff between personnel of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Nigerian Air Force (NAF).

    Air Force personnel penultimate Friday stormed the Kaduna State zonal office of the EFCC over arrest of some suspected Internet fraudsters said to include serving military personnel. The soldiers reportedly arrived at the EFCC office on Wurno Road, in the state capital, at about 10a.m. in three Hilux patrol vans and cordoned off the main gate, preventing EFCC officials from entry or exit from the premises. The standoff soon degenerated as the Air Force men and policemen attached to the EFCC engaged in a shouting match, threateningly brandishing their guns at one another. The NAF personnel were said to have stormed the anti-graft agency office in a bid to forcibly release their colleagues earlier arrested by EFCC operatives.

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    EFCC spokesperson Dele Oyewale gave his agency’s narrative of the encounter in a statement. He said operatives of the Kaduna zonal command had on November 13 arrested five suspects at a fun spot in Kaduna following credible intelligence about their alleged Internet fraud activities. “However, after the sting operation, six military personnel who witnessed the operation…stormed the Kaduna command and attempted to forcibly release the arrested fraud suspects. They were subdued and detained over the security breach,” he added. The intruders, according to him, are four Air Force personnel and two students of the Air Force Institute of Technology. Oyewale further explained that while the men were in detention, there was inter-agency engagement between the leadership of EFCC and the Air Force to resolve the issues. “Unfortunately, dialogue on the release of the combative Air Force personnel broke down on Friday, November 17, when some unruly NAF officers stormed the Kaduna command in commando-style to forcefully release their detained colleagues,” he said.

    EFCC released the detained Air Force personnel same day on administrative bail, but insisted they will be charged to court. “The officers were released to their service in strict adherence to the bail procedures of the commission,” Oyewale said, adding: “The commission reiterates the fact that no one is above the law and the due process will be followed in bringing the case to a conclusion.”

    NAF neither gave its own narrative nor refuted EFCC’s account, and so it’s all we have to go on. If it is true that Air Force personnel were nabbed for Internet fraud, and some others assayed to free them forcibly, the security agency needs to undertake internal disciplinary procedures separate from the judicial line of action being pursued by EFCC.

  • Numbers are not everything   

    Numbers are not everything   

    Less than six months after the inauguration of Nigeria’s 10th National Assembly, on June 13, no fewer than 32 bills have been presented in the Senate and the House of Representatives for the creation of new universities, polytechnics, colleges of health and colleges of education, according to a recent report.

     The information is food for thought. The number of higher education institutions proposed within the period suggests a dearth of such institutions in the country, and an urgent need to address the shortage. But numbers are not everything.    

    According to the National Universities Commission (NUC), Nigeria has 52 federal universities, 63 state universities and 147 private universities. Figures from the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) indicate that there are 40 federal polytechnics, 49 state-owned polytechnics and 76 private polytechnics in the country. There are 70 federal and state-owned colleges of health, and 17 private colleges of health.  As for the colleges of education in the country, the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) states that there are 219.

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    Notably, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, and the Deputy Speaker, Benjamin Kalu, were reported to be among the proposers of new tertiary institutions. Abbas was said to have proposed the founding of the Federal University of Technology, Kaduna, while Kalu was said to have proposed the establishment of the Federal University of Medical and Health Sciences, Bende, Abia State.

    They want these proposed institutions sited in their constituencies, which gives their proposals a curious colouration. This raises the question: What inspired their proposals?

    The same question can be asked concerning the other bills seeking the creation of new tertiary institutions, including Federal University of Information and Communications Technology, Lagos State; Federal University of Agriculture, Ute Okpa, Delta State; Federal University of Biomedical Sciences, Benue State; Federal College of Health Sciences, Gaya, Kano State; and Federal College of Dental Technology, Faggae, Kano State.

    There are also bills to create Federal College of Agriculture, Agila, Benue State; Federal College of Education, Dangi-Kanam, Plateau State; Federal College of Education, Bende, Abia State; Benjamin Kalu Federal Polytechnic, Rano, Kano State; and Federal Polytechnic, Shendam, Plateau State, among others.

    The proposers should think beyond just increasing the number of such institutions, and focus on improving the existing tertiary institutions.  

    Alarming reports show that many universities in the country, and indeed many other tertiary institutions, are facing severe and debilitating shortage of qualified teaching personnel, particularly as a result of their continuing exodus in search of greener pastures abroad, among other factors.   

     The numerous bills to establish new tertiary institutions reflect poor legislative thinking. The legislators should address the serious problems of the existing institutions, rather than thinking of creating new ones that would likely face the same problems to the detriment of tertiary education in the country.      

  • Time to leave

    Time to leave

    Contrary to the existing rules, some members of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) have overstayed their time in the organisation, and they know it. But for reasons best known to themselves, they are unwilling to retire.

    The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun, observed in a recently publicised internal communication “the emerging and disturbing trend in the Nigeria Police Force wherein officers upon attainment of 35 years in service or 60 years of age refuse to proceed on retirement.”

    He also noted that the situation “is contrary to the provisions of the public service rule,” adding that “all actions taken by the said officers for the Nigeria police are null and void as a result of expiration of service duration.”

    He ordered police formations and commands to “immediately extract a letter of voluntary retirement from such officers.”  The police boss said: “The police authorities need to publish all officers that have violated their service retirement age.”

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    Indeed, there are indications that the police authorities are considering a review of the retirement age and tenure of service, and may extend them to either 65 years of age or 40 years in service. The Police Service Commission (PSC), headed by Solomon Arase, a former IGP, was reported to have made those recommendations to Egbetokun, towards reforming the police force.

    Also, in August, the Committee of Retired Inspectors General of Police endorsed a review of the retirement age and service tenure in a communique issued at the end of their retreat in Ibadan, which focused on “strategic contribution to effective policing in Nigeria.”

    The former police bosses argued that there was a need for a re-evaluation of the retirement age and tenure of service, saying, “This should be by extending the retirement age from 60 to 65 years and tenure of service from 35 to 40 years, whichever comes first.”

     Thinking of reviewing the existing rules on police retirement age and service tenure, and presenting arguments to support the new thinking, may well be positive developments.

     But the reality is that the rules have not changed. Those affected by the rules must not remain in the organisation, possibly expecting the rules to be changed in their favour.

    It is ironic that police officers who are supposed to enforce the law are acting like lawbreakers. The affected members of the NPF should not wait to be forced to retire. If their time is up, they should just leave.       

  • Obasanjo and his Egbere cries 

    Obasanjo and his Egbere cries 

    The Yoruba are all scoff and contempt for the Egbere — some creature, neither man nor spirit, clutching its tiny mat, endlessly wailing and droning, without rime or reason. 

    The Egbere, as riveting creature, is vivid in Yoruba folklores.  But it could also be a metaphor for wailing over lost opportunities, but unwilling to admit avoidable failures.

    That persona fiercely leaps out of the latest drama of former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his latest fancy of “Afro-democracy”, whatever that gibberish means.

    Here is a fellow that contributed least to brewing this democracy.  Despite Obasanjo subverting it at every critical point — witness his role in Gen. Ibrahim Babangida’s annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election and the propping up of the feckless Ernest Shonekan as Interim Head of State to bury MKO Abiola’s mandate — Obasanjo has had more than his fair share of state pork since 1999.

    His Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), of rotten moral provenance, is clear proof of that skewed munificence.  Obasanjo, as the boy so over-fed he called his doting parents arrant fools, from the same complex he corralled from “democracy”, now  bawls “useless” Democracy must give way for his Afro-Democracy!  How rich! 

    Obasanjo bewails his many false steps.  But he hides his clear misdeeds behind some pseudo-piety.  If Nigerian democracy isn’t delivering dividends, it’s due to Obasanjo’s many wilful blunders, in those first eight foundation years — 1999-2007.

    Obasanjo, as president, brazenly subverted the rights of states: acting dumb as rogue assemblies, sponsored by rogue confederates, of a rogue president, sacked governors with their infamous “simple minority”, and kidnapped others to procure rogue resignations.  But for the courts, Nigeria would now have been an antediluvian country, chiselled from Obasanjo’s stone-age soul!

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    He seized Lagos council funds, hoping by that Lagos, under Governor Bola Tinubu, would collapse.   As the climax of his inglorious second term, he and his Vice President danced naked in the market, ripping off the grace of their high offices.  To climax it all, he plotted a third term that blew up in his face.  Yet, this man wears his fake piety as some tinsel and fake jewelry.

    In lamenting that democracy is not working in Nigeria — and Africa — he is docking himself as one of the past leaders — in Nigeria and Africa — that ensured just that.

    For instance, how can Obasanjo waste good money on “debt forgiveness”, instead of investing that huge cash in infrastructure, physical and social, that would have fired the economy, which could have repaid those debts without fuss?

    Besides, OOPL — from where he ran his mouth — is the most incriminating evidence against his person and rant.  How can Obasanjo corral so much to feed his personal greed and still rant from there that democracy has failed?

    This Owu fox should spare the rest of us his hypocritical rantings.  He should stop distracting those clearing up the mess he created, by his “Egbere” cries.· 

  • Gridlocked justice

    Gridlocked justice

    Justice delayed is justice denied’ is an age-old dictum on justice dispensation. For some inmates of Nigerian correctional centres, however, the dictum could as well be ‘Justice delayed is justice.’ This is because such inmates have been awaiting trial for years on end and are not getting closer to being put through that experience to confirm their guilt or otherwise. Yet they remain in custody. Few lucky ones who caught attention and got released came in the news recently.

    An Ikeja High Court, last week, freed three men – Peter Edialu, Godspower Friday and Bayo Segun – after they were held for nearly six years without trial. Justice Oyindamola Ogala, in separate judgements, ordered that they be “released and discharged forthwith if there are no pending matters in other courts.”

    The men had sued Lagos State Attorney-General, the Commissioner of Police and the correctional service over their custody without trial. Counsel to the applicants, Ben Abraham, said the court granted the enforcement of their fundamental rights as brought before it. “They have been in detention for about six years. The oldest of them had been in Kirikiri medium custodial centre since 2018 for sexual offences and was awaiting the Department of Public Prosecutions’ advice. But nothing has happened since then. When we got to the custodial centre and saw their plight – that they were not even before any court or having the opportunity to defend themselves – we picked up their cases earlier this year,” he stated.

    These three men had a fairer deal compared with a 73-year-old man arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and held in custody for 13 years and eight months, awaiting trial until a court released him late October. A rights group that secured his release, Headfort Foundation, said the man identified as Nyeche got arrested when he was 60 years old. Headfort took up Nyeche’s case after a church member who went for prison outreach in March 2022 alerted it, and it found that his casefile had gone missing and wasn’t before any court since 2019.

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    “We traced his file to the DPP’s office and brought him before a court on 20th October 2023, when he was re-arraigned for the crime of stealing. We argued that Nyeche should be released because he has already served more than the sentence provided for the crime if found guilty,” the group said, adding that the EFCC rather requested an adjournment to prepare for trial, which the court granted. The group thus applied for Nyeche’s bail and undertook to produce him in court on next adjourned date, and that was how he got freed from incarceration.

    Hardball thinks there is need to shake up the judicial system and end this gross abuse of human rights.

  • NLC, TUC, rule of law

    NLC, TUC, rule of law

    Following the November 1 Joe Ajaero assault and battery in Owerri, Imo State, the two Labour centres, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC), threatened a national shutdown from November 14, if their Imo demands were not met.

    On November 10, Justice Benedict Kanyip, the sitting judge on the ex-parte request against the threatened strike, which the Federal Government had brought to the National Industrial Court (NIC), ordered that the strike be put off, until all parties argued their cause before the court.

    Justice Kanyip, who is also the president of NIC, ruled: “An order of interim injunction is hereby made restraining the defendants/respondents, their members, their agents, employees, workmen, servants, proxies or affiliates from embarking on the planned industrial action and of strike of any nature, pending the hearing and determination of the claimant/applicant’s motion on notice for interlocutory injunctions.”

    The NIC warned that there would be consequences should the order be disobeyed.

    The strike went on anyway, with NLC/TUC grounding the country for two days, though compliance levels differed from place to place.  Festus Osifo, TUC president and arrow head of the strike, bragged that Labour was shunning the order because the government also always does.  Also recall that Ajaero’s Imo attack followed the NLC shunting aside an NIC order.

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    It’s good that Nuhu Ribadu, the National Security Adviser (NSA), intervened for Labour to call off the strike.  It’s also good that the NSA apologized to Labour for Ajaero’s beating.  It’s even better and re-assuring that those allegedly behind Ajaero’s thumping have been arrested, while investigations continue.  Rule of law! Due process!

    The same due process should now shift to both Ajaero and Osifo.  The NIC should summon both to explain their disobedience of its clear order, even with even a clearer caveat for sanctions.

    As Ajaero was thrashed in Owerri by those who like the victim took laws into their hands, the Federal Government could have rolled out legit force to enforce the NIC order; and many striking workers could have been in harm’s way.  That the Federal Government didn’t take laws in own hands, as Labour did, deserves praise.

    That is why Ajaero and Osifo must explain their actions to NIC.  If the court feels they are justified, fine.  Otherwise, they should face sanctions for that outlawry.  That is rule of law and due process.  

    We cannot lash against a lawless government but tolerate a lawless Labour.  Organized Labour cannot contemn the law that gives it lawful privilege to disrupt people’s investments, in pushing the right of its members.  

    It’s time NIC put its foot down — and firmly too.  You can’t repay legal rights with brazen anarchy, as Labour, under Ajaero and Osifo, has been doing.

  • Vultures at work

    Vultures at work

    It would seem like some people see Nigeria as one fleshy carcass to be devoured. Or what do we make of reports of a purportedly new Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and two dialysis machines procured for a government hospital, but which have never been in working shape? Benue State University Teaching Hospital (BSUTH) Chief Medical Director, Dr. Stephen Hwande, said since the MRI machine was installed by a contractor and a test-run conducted, it had not been used on any patient because of malfunction. He added that it was later discovered the machine supplied was not new as the contract document indicated.

    Speaking when members of Benue State House of Assembly standing committee on health recently visited the hospital on oversight function, Hwande, who newly took over as the hospital’s CMD, lamented that the MRI machine and the two dialysis machines acquired for the isolation unit were not functioning. He said: “The MRI machine alone, if functional, can solve close to 70 percent of radiological dialysis. What is shocking is that this machine was commissioned in March, this year. The MRI is there, it is not working and has not worked on any Benue patient. Also, the two dialysis machines supplied to the isolation unit are not safe for human use. They have never been used and are beyond repairs.”

    To appreciate the level of resource misapplication involved, one could get a sense of the shelf costs of the machines. An online search showed that though some low-field MRI machines cost as little as $150,000, typical price range is from $1million to $3million for a single state-of-the-art, high-power MRI machine. It reportedly costs about N25million to set up a dialysis centre with just one machine, with associated costs including for water treatment unit, good water storage system, catheters and other consumables.

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    The Benue lawmakers, who also decried the expiration of drugs worth over N200million in BSUTH store, said they had resolved to institute a probe. “How did drugs worth over N200million go to waste?… Even if it was given as donation, it would have taken the hospital to great heights. So we will have to invite those involved because the cost of the drugs and equipment are in billions, and we were made to understand that a loan was taken to purchase these machines,” House committee chairman, Thomas Dugeri, said.

    The lawmakers called out persons to be invited for probe to include former Health Commissioner Joseph Ngbea, former CMD, Dr. Terlumun Swende, the Health Ministry’s Permanent Secretary and its Director, Purchasing and Supply. But it must have been an extensive deal The scale of misapplication is so enormous that higher placed officials of the former Benue administration shouldn’t be spared the probe if findings so warrant. 

  • Disunity and decline

    Disunity and decline

    Perhaps the members of Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural association with a political complexion, need to be reminded of the wisdom of the age-old saying, “United we stand, divided we fall.” The group has been struggling to achieve stability in the face of centrifugal factors and forces, and it has been diminished by a dented image.

    The latest evidence of possibly fatal disunity within the organisation surfaced after the recent meeting of the faction led by Chief Ayo Adebanjo, in Ogbo Ijebu, Ogun State. Its Secretary General, Chief Sola Ebiseni, released a statement that criticised the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the election of Bola Tinubu as the country’s president.

     The Adebanjo faction said: “Unfortunately, by the Supreme Court’s decision, the electoral reforms achieved through the agitations of Nigerians for quality control through technological devices and the billions of naira spent on the infrastructures in that regard are now wasted.”

    The faction under Chief Reuben Fasoranti responded that the other faction’s communication was “far from the truth about Afenifere’s leadership position on the matter.” Its Organising Secretary, Kole Omololu, described the critical release as the result of “an unfortunate misadventure of some Labour Party elements within the Afenifere fold,” and called it a “preposterous attack on the judiciary by intemperate elements within the fold, fanning the embers of national discords with political motives, using the name of Afenifere.”

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    He noted that Fasoranti had congratulated Tinubu after he won the February 25 presidential election, and also had no problem with the  Supreme Court’s decision reaffirming his electoral victory.

     Indeed, he stated that the meeting in Ogbo Ijebu “at no point raised or decided on the attack on the judiciary as the statements of the General Secretary seemed to portray,” and challenged Ebiseni “to offer the world, the true record of deliberations at the said meeting to confirm its concurrence with the communiqué he so released to the world.”

    There was a marked division within the group before the presidential election. Adebanjo had argued that it was time for a Southeast presidency, and had backed the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi. But Fasoranti had maintained that Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), regardless of his Southwest provenance, was the best candidate for the position.

    The presidential election has been lost and won. The country’s apex court has ruled with finality on the matter. Afenifere should not be the ultimate loser by succumbing to disunity.

  • Dino.  All din, no vote!

    Dino.  All din, no vote!

    Foremost comic, Dino Melaye, just pulled off a most bathetic stunt — not voting in his own election as Kogi governor, but turning round to howl: cancel the vote!

    Now, is that a comedy?  A tragedy?  A tad in-between?  

    Or just a John Donne-like “conceit” — read unfazed intellectual poetry that questions about every seemingly settled matter — which, however with Dino, exposes a real tragic conceit: a political loud-mouth, all din, but absolutely no vote?

    After staying off voting for himself, Dino growled there was no vote in Kogi.  Of course, there wasn’t any!  Did Dino himself vote?  If he didn’t, how could there have been a vote?  Isn’t Dino the entire universe, within which things moved or stopped?

    Again, reference John Donne in his poem, “The Sun Rising”.  Angered at the sun’s intrusive morning rays, the poem’s protagonist scowled at the “busy old fool, unruly sun”, and threatened to shut out the all-fiery difference day and night with a “mere wink”! Poetic conceit! 

    So, if Dino didn’t vote, no one else did!  Political conceit?  Or just plain delusion?

    Still, back to real life and real people.  The ever volatile Nyesom Wike, former Rivers governor and now FCT minister, asked very early in the day: what serious party would pick a Dino Melaye, aka Tarzan of our time, aka “Ajekun Iya” crooner, aka GOC, Bukola Saraki storm troopers, of the eighth Senate?

    The thunderous answer came on November 11: none!  

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    The Dino shellacking reverberated all over Kogi, as Dino’s juvenile pranks and stunts stung — and riled — decent souls all over Nigeria.  It was Judgment Day and it was such a resounding thunder clap of disgraceful defeat!  No tears from Hardball!  How did this errant man-child ever grace Nigeria’s highest legislative chamber?

    That again echoes the eighth Senate — and maybe the potency of spirituality (read Karma) in politics.  Indeed, the Dino electoral “slaughter” marked his final(?) ruin, as one of the major players in that Senate, that troubled Nigeria’s proverbial house of Israel.

    In 2019, Saraki became an internally displaced person (IDP) from the Kwara empire his father, Baba Oloye, built.  That year also, Dino got tossed out of the Senate.  Much later, Ike Ekweremadu, who bought stolen goods as deputy senate president, no thanks to Saraki and co’s perfidy, got canned in a British jail, under tragic family circumstances, trying to play a doting dad, saving darling daughter.

    Both Abubakar Atiku and new Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan went campaigning for Dino.  But how can a bad product — especially former VP Atiku, who became unhinged after his 2023 presidential election loss, throwing tantrums at everyone — sell another bad product?  How?

    Dino, with eternal rascality, had over the years de-marketed himself.  The Kogi misadventure would appear his end-of-the-road.  Any resurrection?  Highly unlikely.

    The epigram on his political grave?  Here lies Dino Melaye, he who was all din, no vote!