Category: Hardball

From a power grab to a terrorist threat, the Niger junta just plumbed the nadir: should ECOWAS invade to flush them out and restore constitutional order, they would kill President Mohamed Bazoum, now in their captivity.

There is no strength in this language of threat.  Rather, it’s all panic-riddled: robbers not sure they would get away with their loot, no matter how long they clutch it, but felt obliged to give selves fond hopes with empty bluff.

Indeed, even the coup-suffused West Africa has come a long way.  Hitherto, all what these power-rascals-in-uniform needed was to blast their way in, murder the president and declare themselves rogue lords of the manor. 

Read Also: UPDATED: Niger Coup leader Tchiani okays dialogue with ECOWAS

Not any more.  The Niger junta now crave ECOWAS recognition of their head.  So, their booming bombs can’t achieve that — beyond making them all regional pariahs? How times have changed! 

Which is why ECOWAS must keep up the pressure.  The point must be made loud and clear: no soldier must turn state arms, put in sacred trust in his care, against his state, yet sit pretty and live happily ever after.  Never again!

That’s why the ECOWAS “invasion” is a sweet sword of Damocles.  Let them imagine it and profusely sweat!

Unfortunately though, when crises happen, both patricians and the rabble recede into zero institutional memory.  To many elite commentaries on the Niger case, might is right and we may as well get on with it.  Many of these are opportunistic voices, on the look out for craven hustle to be milked.

But what of the Nigerien masses themselves, left dirt poor by previous juntas, who had little to offer beyond cynical revolutionary cant?

Hamidou Albade, 48, is one of those but a junta supporter nonetheless.  “It is very difficult, I just sit at home doing nothing,” he told AP.  “We are suffering now, but I know the junta will find a solution to get out of the crisis.”

Yeah, right, as they did in Nigeria!  And as they did in Ghana in the immediate post-Nkrumah era, before the chastening rod of Jerry Rawlings; as they did in The Gambia; or, for that matter, as the current junta braggarts are doing in Mali and Burkina Faso!  Solutions indeed!

The good thing, though, is the masses hardly change the society, for better or for worse: only a critical mass does: as in the Nigerian experience, where a small core of political soldiers, united in crookedness, completely destroyed the fibre of public morality.  Twenty-four full years into renewed democracy, Nigeria is still under that spell.

Niger, as Mali and Burkina Faso; and even the rather quiet Guinea Conakry, are set for inevitable junta-bred problems.  Niger, particularly in somewhat linked to Nigeria, by culture, by faith. 

That is why Nigeria has a self-imposed enlightened self-interest to ensure the junta up there are dislodged, before their long-suffering folks start scrambling down south and compounding the challenges of the five Nigerian states sharing borders with Niger Republic.

The Edo gubernatorial scuffle, with echoes and counter-echoes of “impeachment”, is Karma quacking loud and clear: it’s perfidy warring with its two children.  It may well consume them both.

How in 2016 Adams Oshiomhole, former Edo governor, literarily strapped Godwin Obaseki, the present governor to his back, selling him to the Edo electorate, was gripping political stuff.

Obaseki, a so-called “technocrat” from Lagos, was little known to Edo voters beyond his native name.  It was Oshio Baba that anointed him as successor — for whatever reason: his sound technocracy?  

On the hustings, Oshiomhole freely chomped corncobs, Obaseki in tow, just to don the returned but unknown native in the masses’ garb.  He was a protege in whom Oshio was well pleased!  But that protege got to power and played Machiavelli’s grim diktat: king, slay the kingmaker fast, so you can rule in peace, not in pieces!

Philip Shaibu, Obaseki’s embattled deputy governor, goes way back with Oshiomhole.  First, both are Etsako, Edo North natives.  Shaibu was Oshiomhole “clone” in the Labour movement: looked up to him as a youth to an elder; and even dressed like him, cheerful puny of his adored Aluta Labour comrade-in-chief.

Read Also: Obaseki, Edo APC chair clash over performance

With Shaibu as Obaseki’s deputy, Oshiomhole must have thought his back and flanks were covered.  That proved the illusion — no, delusion — of the millennium!  Against Oshiomhole when the chips were now, Shaibu became Obaseki’s brutal attack dog!

Horror of horrors — twin-beneficiaries, as a vicious tag-team in unison, pounced on their joint benefactor, in a fit of perfidy!  Many though accused Oshiomhole himself of tinkering with the Edo APC candidate list, after legitimate primaries.

Yes, not a few dig at Obaseki as reminiscent of his grandfather, who moved against the Bini crown, for the rampaging British, against his own Oba, at a tetchy point in Benin Empire history.  

But even more were riled at Shaibu turning against his long-term benefactor with dazzling malevolence.  If Okonkwo, in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, was warned against raising his hands against Ikemefuna, a boy that called him father, here was a true life contrast: Shaibu slaying a man that calls him son, in brutal but sweet political patricide!

But as in Achebe’s famous fiction, things have fallen apart between the two.  As Obaseki blocked and sought to disgrace Oshiomhole, so has he turned against his one-time battling ram against their old benefactor-turned-emergency-foe.  

Poor Shaibu!  Like the filth-coated dog forced to covet home for a fond spruce up, the embattled deputy governor, moaning “impeachment”, dreams of his roots for salvation!

Will it come?  The answer nestles in the womb of time!

Meanwhile, the Edo revolution — sorry, perfidy — consumes its own children; but it’s opening salvos yet!  It’s certainly no sight for the faint-hearted, as Karma settles scores in own granite, inimitable way!  

Who blinks?  How sweet!

Comparing the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) under Adams Oshiomhole with NLC under Joe Ajaero rather echoes Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, who declared life such a flux you couldn’t step in the same river twice.

The river in which Oshiomhole gloriously splashed, bombing the Obasanjo Presidency in bruising anti-subsidy removal wars, is now so changed.  Yet, Ajaero doesn’t seem — or even cares — to know.

That is even worsened by Ajaero’s “agbero” (motor park) tactics — every pun intended. Or how else would you dub an NLC president threatening a strike, should he be summoned, for alleged contempt, by the National Industrial Court (NIC)?

Ajaero, in a statement he signed with Emmanuel Ugboaja, NLC general secretary, after the NLC National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting, decreed the Federal Ministry of Justice and NIC were “anti-democracy” agents.  So, should both not back down by August 24, NLC would resort to self-help — a nation-wide strike.  What hubris!

On record, the bristling Ajaero had attempted two earlier national strikes.  The first one, which fetched an NIC injunction, was billed for June 5.  Ajaero’s tactless alliance with Peter Obi and his LP, tugging a normally non-partisan NLC along, helped to roast that aborted strike.  That rashness has also split LP into two seemingly irreconcilable factions.

Read Also; Why Maryam Shetty was withdrawn as ministerial nominee – Ganduje

The second was the August 2 proposed strike, downgraded to protest rallies, which just earned the NIC contempt summons.  That was to last for days until a face-saving Labour meeting with the president, with a face-saving photo-ops at Aso Rock, led to a face-saving call-off, after one day.

Meanwhile, NLC had dismissed the presidential broadcast, on August 1, the eve of its proposed “strike”, as “out of touch”.  That protest was neither a wimp nor the roaring thunder NLC had hoped.  

But that was because the “out of touch” presidential address took the wind out of its sails, while NLC dreamt on, only to scuttle out of it to save face! 

Once beaten, twice shy, goes that aphorism.  Yet, here is Labour: twice beaten, quad brazen: on a suspect course of action, even if its cause is legitimate.  By thumbing down President Tinubu’s speech, NLC betrayed a Freudian-slip that hankered after the “silver bullet”.

A silver bullet mindset — that galloping penchant for open sesame magic instead of deep, thinking — explains NLC’s gang-go approach to issues, when sober introspection would do.

If NLC is not fixated with public refineries, while blithely forgetting the progress in alternative private refineries: local refining, to justify subsidy removal, is fair, core and solid demand; it stubbornly sticks to reverting to pre-subsidy removal pump pricing.  

That river has changed!   Organized Labour will achieve better results by interrogating the government on its new plans, putting the foot of the president and his team to the fire and extracting the best deal for its members.

Enough of Ajaero’s Aluta theatrics.  NLC should join the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in more reasoned engagements to get results.  Nigerians deserve a fairer deal, given the pains from the on-going neo-liberal monetary policies.  

But that won’t come from empty theatrics, little thinking.  That about sums off the Ajaero tactics.  It portrays NLC as really out of touch!

Pity!  Former US President Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) group are blithely unfamiliar with African culture and sayings.

Otherwise, they would have known of the tortoise, eternal star of the folktales.  Tortoise declared he was travelling.  When will you return?  Not until when I’m disgraced, he bragged!

Then, that famous yet grim Yoruba snap: he who does what no one has never done sees what no one has never seen.  So it is with Donald Trump: the post-Barrack Obama president that came furiously swearing to make America white — sorry, great — again: as some new sheriff in town, trying to halt America’s changing demographics, turning more “brown” than white! 

The result has been self-caused personal disaster.  For Uncle Sam, it’s perceived catastrophe:  Trump has made of him  MAGA — sorry, mega — brunt of global jokes! 

Africa boasts no sole monopoly of selfish leaders.  Nor of proudly ignorant partisans teeming with bile and colourful conspiracy theories. 

Read Also; Bayelsa to employ 100 doctors, other health practitioners

For America’s preening version of both, look no farther than Trump and his captive Republican Party base, who should know the truth but allow selves to be bewitched by Trump’s white lies — that he won the 2020 election which he clearly lost.  It’s not the best of times for America’s Grand Old Party (GOP)!

For his wilful election lies, Trump on August 1 just got indicted on four charges, via a 45-page indictment document, result of months of probing by Special Counsel, Jack Smith: Conspiracy to defraud the United States; Conspiracy to obstruct proceedings of Congress; Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and Conspiracy against rights.

All these charges flow from Trump’s macabre lies and more lies.  Before the 2020 US election, Trump bragged the only way he would lose was if the election was rigged.

After, he doubled down — and later made it his cant — that he indeed won when it was clear he had lost.  He tried to pressure state election officials to swing the numbers for him: the most infamous perhaps, his telephone conversation with Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, literarily ordering him to manufacture fictive votes.  Had Raffensperger cracked, Trump would have stolen the election he lost.

The tragic denouement was the siege on the Capitol, on 6 January 2021, when Trump’s misguided mob tried to stop Joe Biden’s formal certification as president: a crude coup that not only profaned America’s sacred and free transfer of power, but also risked the life Vice President Mike Pence.  That assault on the Capitol claimed lives — Capitol police officers that gamely defended that institution and its glory.

Trump has done what no American president did before.  Now, he faces the music: a double impeachment as president, three indictments already, as ex-president, with a fourth looming from Georgia! 

It’s the grand American tortoise passionately counting disgrace and hugging catastrophe.

For Trump, it’s morning yet on disaster day!  No tears from here.

Abba was a 20th century Swedish band that brought sheer joy coursing through the global soul, by the sheer melody and electricity of its lyrics and music.  Kool & the Gang was a similar group, though American, that did no less.

But Abba and the Gang?  That’s a man-made typhoon now tearing though Kano, flattening properties, trashing value and planting sadness and gloom in its trail!  From Kano’s new Governor Abba Yusuf, it’s a new day with a new plague.  

Already, the humongous costs are sobering: according to a report in The Nation of June 18, gone are a three-storey plaza of more than 90 shops, worth N100 billion and a 90-room Five-Star Daula Boutique Hotel, reported to cost more than N10 billion — gone under the rubble.

Also smashed and flattened is a monument which, if it had stood, could have memorialized Kano history and nativity: the N160 million Golden Monument, erected by the Ganduje administration in 2017 to mark the 50th anniversary of the creation of the old Kano State (now Kano and Jigawa states) in 1967.

You could hear the anguish of Hajiya Kaltume Gana, the monument’s designer and curator of the National Art Gallery in Kano, ruing the demise of her artistic offspring as a parent would mourn the premature passing of a golden child.

Read Also: Gov Abba Yusuf reinstates Magaji as Kano Anti-Corruption Boss

“I am very sad and displeased by the demolition of this monument which has become the symbol of Kano,” Hajiya Gana said  ”In fact, it is the face of Kano; the people keep appreciating its tourism essence.”

Gana and the pro-Golden Monument lobby claim it teems with motifs celebrating the Kanawa (the indigenous Kano people’s) Hausa local patterns and cultural/traditional arts and crafts.  But the bulldozing government claimed it boasted an offensive cross, in a dominant Muslim state, projecting a needless faith tension.

Faith tension is incalculable.  Still, the most costly of all the losses so far were clearly two lives — two scavengers lay buried with the ruins of demolition.  

Scavengers — Mallam Aminu Kano’s golden talakawas, perishing with bulldozed choice properties, should be a big deal!  It jars against that age-long essence of Kano as haven of the poor and the vulnerable, as the late Aminu Kano professed all his remarkable life.

It’s not in Hardball’s place to start pontificating on who is right or who is wrong in this grim Kano debacle.  All the facts are not out yet.  We don’t know if the Ganduje government actually rode roughshod over the law, as the Abba Yusuf government now alleges.  We don’t know too, if the new government is just too filled with bile it can’t wait to settle brazen scores.

All of the facts will emerge in due course.

But one thing is clear: politicians should cherish and respect value even while settling scores.  Mowing down assets, in a polity struggling with resources for development, is all-round bad economics.  Indeed, it’s brazen and arrogant lack of common sense!

That’s why the three-week old Kano government may yet rue this early rush, after the initial whoosh of conquest from newfound power.

Identifying Nigeria’s so-called poorest of the poor for the purpose of distributing cash to cushion the harsh effects of fuel subsidy removal may not be as easy as it sounds.

The national social register used by the Muhammadu Buhari administration for its conditional cash transfer scheme for the poor, which was thought to be useful for the post-subsidy programme of the Tinubu presidency, has been discredited by the National Economic Council (NEC).      

After the NEC meeting of July 20, chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima, Anambra State Governor Chukwuma Soludo, who told journalists the outcome of the meeting, said the first hurdle was the lack of a reliable register of the poor.

Read Also: Fuel subsidy removal: Trust Tinubu on gains, Onjeh urges

“We need to face the problem of the fact that we don’t have a credible register,” he said. “I think at the council today, there was almost unanimity among members that there’s a big question mark about the integrity of the so-called National Social Register.”

According to him, “We have questions about how those names in the register were brought about.”  He observed that the idea of a social register that could be used for digital distribution implied that the registered people had bank account numbers and phone numbers.

Soludo, who is a former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), also said “the poorest 25 percent of Nigerians” were likely to be “totally unbanked” and “don’t have access to telephone.”

He explained what was required for the new programme: “If you are delivering any such national or federal programme from Abuja, it needs to be delivered via the governments that are there using their own format and mechanisms to generate the register that is comprehensive.”

The governor also quoted those he said had rubbished the existing register, and suggested that the post-subsidy palliative programme for the poor could not succeed based on the existing register.

 He said: “Many have just described what is being counted as a national register as bogus, some describe it as a phantom…So, we need to face the problem, the fact that we don’t have a credible register and get back to work on this.”

It’s curious that the NEC gave the impression that the existing register, which it considers unreliable, had no input from the states. According to the National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO), “The national social register is an aggregation of state registers built by each of the 36 states and the FCT.”   So, why is the NEC trying to reinvent the wheel?

Ultimately, this development suggests that the cash transfer scheme under the Buhari administration was marred by corruption. There is no guarantee that the proposed rearrangement will be uncorrupted.