Category: Hardball

Remember Samson?  He was the biblical bloke that purchased self-ruin from the excessive love of Delilah, his treacherous wife, but buried his traducers, with him, under his tragic rubble.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s challenge to the 2023 presidential election is still before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).  

Ahead of its verdict, why is the former No. 2 developing a Samson’s complex to bury everyone: with his reckless barbs at the judiciary?  Isn’t that conduct as base as his former exalted office was high?

Paul Ibe, writing for the former Vice President, put on the alert the “international community”.  He accused President Bola Tinubu and agents of allegedly plotting to subvert justice at PEPC, with no facts but rainbow innuendoes and foamy rumours. 

Why that might appear the latest of reckless shrieks from the camps of PDP and LP — both of late have been on a harebrained diet of conspiracy theories, one even claiming a PEPC member had “resigned” to fend off alleged pressures: sweet, gripping fiction by the way — Ibe’s tale added another laughable angle.

He claimed Tinubu and his APC had developed the notoriety of illicitly sacking high judicial officers, citing former CJN, Walter Onnoghen, removed from office for non-asset declaration charges.  

But the same Onnoghen was duly convicted by the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) on those charges.  Had the government pressed criminal charges, and secured a conviction, perhaps an ex-CJN could have been serving term today!  If Onnoghen eventually got CCT conviction, what was illicit in his removal?

Even with that, in their one-track tale, Ibe and Atiku conveniently forgot the case of Justice Ayo Salami who a PDP government, under President Goodluck Jonathan, brazenly persecuted because the Appeal Court, of which he was president, restored electoral mandates PDP stole: in Edo, Ondo, Ekiti and Osun, during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s do-or-die election of 2007.  

Read Also; APC NEC to ratify Ganduje, Basiru as chairman, secretary

That do-or-die “mandate” was so dirty and so filthy the late Umaru Yar’Adua, its utmost beneficiary, cringed from it.

It’s PDP’s rank dishonesty and utter lack of nobility that would make an Ibe, writing under Atiku’s name, to claim any election is worse than that murderous heist of 2007; and before it, its 2003 cousin — both conducted under the PDP government of Obasanjo.  But then, experts at telling fairy tales, with sizzling lies, often wish the receiver had saw dust for brain!

Atiku should eschew playing ping-pong with the judiciary, in his desperate politics and politicking.  It was the same judiciary that came through for him when Obasanjo tried to grind him into virtual powder, during their best-forgotten second term (2003-2007): that horrible season that echoed “third term” and birthed “do-or-die” polls!

Even if you ignore Ibe as a hired hand earning his pay, Atiku, a former Vice President, can’t afford such rascality at the expense of the judiciary.  

Playing Samson would be a new low for Atiku, even if he lost at PEPC and failed in his umpteenth attempt to be president.

Understandably, MT TURA II, the vessel set ablaze by agents of the Federal Government on July 11, which contained stolen crude oil, continues to grab the headlines.  

The House of Representatives, this week, resolved to form an ad hoc committee to find out what happened to the 150,000 metric tonnes of stolen crude oil in the 800,000-tonne capacity vessel, valued at $86.8m.

The authorities gave the impression that the vessel and its cargo were destroyed, which is curious because $86.8m isn’t peanuts. Was it possible to burn the vessel, and not lose the stolen crude oil? Why was that not pursued?  What really happened?  The planned legislative probe is in order.

 Agents of Tantita Security Services, a private security firm working for the Federal Government, had, on July 7, intercepted the vessel, which was conveying its stolen cargo from Nigeria to Cameroon. There were 11 Nigerians and one Ghanaian on board. Who were they?

The vessel was burnt four days later at a location in Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State. This was done by a team comprising military personnel, law enforcement agents, as well as Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) and Delta State government officials, according to Tantita’s Executive Director, Technical Operations, Captain Warredi Enisuoh.

NNPLC Chief Communications Officer Garba Deen Muhammad said “the vessel has been operating in stealth mode for the last 12 years,” and lacked valid documentation for itself or its crude oil cargo, which he said was illegally sourced from a well jacket offshore Ondo State. 

He explained: “It was concluded to destroy the vessel to serve as a strong warning and deterrent to all those participating in such illegal activities to cease and desist.

“Destroying vessels involved in transporting stolen crude oil is of paramount importance as a strong deterrent.”

 This explanation does not clarify why the stolen crude oil was left in the vessel that was set ablaze, if indeed that happened. Burning the vessel to send a strong signal to oil thieves is one thing; losing the stolen oil and the money it was worth is quite another.  

The planned legislative investigation resulted from a motion by Thomas Ereyitomi, titled “Need to Discourage the Destruction of Vessels Laden with Stolen Crude Oil with a view to Curbing Environmental Pollution in the Niger Delta Region.”  He noted that “In October 2022, a vessel named MT DEIMA which was laden with 1500 metric tonnes of stolen crude oil, was also arrested and set ablaze in the Warri escravos river.”

The House declared that “this act” must not be allowed to continue because it has undesirable consequences, including destroying the ecosystem of the Niger Delta region already ravaged by oil exploration and further adversely affecting the livelihood and overall wellbeing of the Niger Delta people whose main occupation is fishing.  Are the authorities listening?

Eko Rice, product of the Lagos rice mill, Imota, near Ikorodu — the largest rice mill in Africa, third largest in the world — just hit the Commodities Exchange market.  Its quoted entry price is N33, 000 for a 50-kilogram bag.  Its projected yearly sale is 2.5 million units.

At N33, 000 per 50 kg bag, Eko Rice makes little dent on the rice — and other foodstuffs’ — inflationary spiral.  Some imported rice brands sell below that price (many at around N28, 000 to N30, 000) — still too high.

Still, many of these brands are smuggled stuff.  Many too may yet be mere chaff, past their prime as nutritive stuff, thus constituting latent health hazards.  Nevertheless, locally planted and processed rice, with no freighting costs over the seas, should cost far less than imported ones, other things being equal.

But like LAKE rice before it (LAKE is acronym for LAgos and KEbbi: the two states that collaborated to produce that rice brand), Eko Rice is symbol of an agricultural renaissance, which the Buhari Presidency dubbed “eat what you grow and grow what you eat.”

The promise of Eko Rice is therefore great.  With other local brands, agro-powered jobs could be secure and sustainable, so long as overall security is ramped up and farmer-herder clashes are reduced to the barest minimum, aside from securing the vast farms nationwide from rampaging bandits and allied criminals.

Read Also: Jollof rice war continues at CBL, as Eko Kings face Warriors

With larger plots of land put to safe and secure rice farming and more mills set up to process paddies, agriculture-processing could open the flood gates to Nigeria’s re-industrialization, so long as routine electricity supply is greatly boosted.  

With processing replicated agriculture-wide: mango, orange, etc (into fruit juices), cashew (processed both for local consumption and export) and cassava (processed into industrial starch), the prospects of food security is not only bright, thumping unemployment could also be a thing of the past.

But back to Eko Rice.  Its market entry price is certainly no comfort for an inflation-ravaged market and for the many poor household struggling to grind out a living.  Still, it’s at worst a hard start to a very promising journey of saturating the market with local rice, at good prices that make imported rice mostly unprofitable.

That should be the target of Eko Rice and other local brands — flooding the local market and then exporting the excess for forex.

That’s the rebound economy Nigeria needs — an agriculture process-led real sector, providing mass jobs, guaranteeing food security and affordability, and banishing poverty.

At that threshold waits the ultimate “dividend of democracy”.

Hopefully, the detained leader of the proscribed separatist group, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has learned a lesson from the outcome of his court case in which he had sought an order directing the defendants to allow him to wear any clothes of his choice while in the detention facility of the Department of State Services (DSS) or when attending court for his trial. He is facing terrorism-related charges. 

Kanu had alleged that the DSS subjected him to inhuman treatment and torture; and violated his right to dignity, among others, by denying him the right to dress as he desired, like wearing the Igbo traditional attire called “Isi-Agu,” while in the DSS facility or any time he appeared in court for his trial.

Justice James Omotosho of the Federal High Court, Abuja, on July 13, dismissed Kanu’s fundamental rights enforcement suit, saying it lacked merit. According to the judge, the right to human dignity is related to the right against torture, and inhuman treatment, among others. He held that, based on the evidence before the court, Kanu’s case did not relate to torture or forced labour, adding that a right to dignity was not a right to wear any clothes he liked as an inmate. The judge also held that Kanu failed to provide the photographs and names of inmates whom he alleged were allowed to wear any clothes they liked. 

In its defence, the security agency had said that its agents never tortured Kanu in any manner while in their custody, and never breached his right to human dignity.   The Isi-Agu attire, popularly called chieftaincy attire, the DSS said, was not a suitable dress for persons in detention facilities, and it was against its standard operating procedure to allow an inmate to wear such a dress.

The agency said that its detention facility was not a recreational centre or traditional festival where Kanu and other suspects could wear their traditional attires; and denied that other suspects were allowed to put on any clothing of their choice, including traditional wear.

“In line with global best practices,” the DSS said, persons in its detention facility “are allowed to wear only plain clothes which do not bear symbols, writings, colours and insignias that are offensive to any religion, ethnic group or even the Nigeria state in general.”

 Was it reasonable or realistic for the IPOB leader to have expected to be allowed to wear attires with Biafra insignias, or clothes that have colours of the non-existing Biafra Republic being pursued by his separatist group, even though he was an inmate? What happened to Kanu’s sense of reality?

The Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON) in Kaduna is a military hardware supply company and it is, thus, an agency under the Ministry of Defence. It is, however, not for that reason a unit of the core military institution; and so, it is expected to allow space for its non-military personnel to express themselves in line with the character of the civil dispensation we currently are in. But the management of the organisation seems not apprised of that point.

Recently, the DICON management called up soldiers serving at the corporation to crush a peaceful protest by civilian staff over non-payment of their allowances. It was reportedly the second attempt by the staff to press home their demand for payment of their six-month Peculiar Allowance, minimum wage arrears since 2019 and promotion arrears for 2020, 2021 and 2022. The staff members had assembled at the Kakuri, Kaduna factory of the corporation at about 8:00am three Mondays ago when soldiers drafted by the management to prevent a protest within the facility forced them away from the gates to nearby Monday Market. In the process, the soldiers who were reportedly armed to the teeth beat up one of the protesters who was using his mobile phone to record the scene, while another protesting staff identified as Bala, a civilian securityman at the factory, was arrested and taken into custody by the armed soldiers.

Read Also: Soldiers beat, arrest staff protesting non-payment of allowances at DICON

Speaking to journalists, one of the protesters cited the management’s failure to enroll staff members into the IPPIS scheme as one of the reasons for the protest, alleging that the civilian staff were suffering in their service to Nigeria through DICON. Besides, the staff demanded immediate payment of their full promotion arrears for 2020, 2021, and 2022, and their Peculiar Allowance to cushion the removal of fuel subsidy, among other demands. “We are here only to let the management and the Federal Government know how we are being treated as civilian staff of DICON. This is because we discovered that all agencies under the Ministry of Defence have been enrolled into the IPPIS, only DICON staff have not been captured. But you can see how our member was beaten and another taken into custody by soldiers,” the protesting staff told journalists, urging government to intervene by directing DICON management to respond to the demands and stop victimising workers who voiced concerns over denial of their rights.

Media attempt to get DICON’s side of the story was rebuffed, as Public Relations Officer Musa Yakubu reportedly responded via a text message by simply saying: “Sorry sir, I’m not on the ground. Thank you.” But the corporation’s management needs to face up to the workers’ demands and address these as appropriate. More importantly, allow the staff to vent their grouse so long as they do it peacefully. It’s their right.   

A refreshing sight: PDP top hierarchs — suspended or outright retired — doing a sortie to congratulate President Bola Tinubu.

Anyim Pius Anyim, former Senate President (suspended from PDP) and Olisa Metuh, a former PDP national publicity secretary (resigned from partisan politics in 2022, citing medical reasons), were the August presidential guests in July.

Though such cross-partisan solidarity might somewhat leave a bitter taste in the mouth of their PDP (still chasing, at it were, a mandate that was never lost), it would appear good optics for the new president’s avowed philosophy of a government of national competence.

Still, in the euphoria of the moment, Anyim and Metuh let fly two words: “inclusion” (imperative for everyone to belong) and “bleeding” (no less important: to repair Nigerian national life).

The snag is neither Anyim nor Metuh could claim, by any stretch of imagination, to be apostle of either, from their own public records.

As secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), under President Goodluck Jonathan, Anyim’s office was well nigh ethnic colony. Whither inclusion?

Even when such lopsidedness was noticed and pointed out in the Finance ministry and parastatals under Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Finance minister and coordinating minister for the Economy, her riposte was short and sharp: the Igbo could compete!

So, it’s rich for Anyim to now straight-face push “inclusion”.  Though that principle is just and noble, it was ringing hypocrisy coming from Anyim.  But perhaps, a Saul just turned glorious Paul?

Even more galling was Metuh’s lecture on ‘bleeding’: “Our nation has bled for over eight years,” he declared, in a not-so-coy reference to the Muhammadu Buhari years, “but we believe that from now onwards, Mr. President has shown the way that the country will come together …”

Not so fast!  Still, it all depends on Metuh’s definition of “bleeding”.  If it means economic haemorrhage, the Jonathan years, during which Metuh was colourful PDP spokesman, had the worst record of bleeding Nigeria.  Metuh’s own trial — with his initial arrogance and allied dramatics — was fulsome proof.

But if Metuh means waste in the context of Nnamdi Kanu and his neo-Biafra anomie, he was talking to the wrong guys.  The South East political elite must de-fang the IPOB anarchy they had generally fostered by conspiratorial silence.  Not anyone else!

But Hardball isn’t interested in opening wounds, though hypocrisy in Nigeria’s public space is ever so annoying.  It’s rather to admonish the Tinubu presidency to do justice to all.  

That way, a post-power sortie to Aso Rock, by any of the present players, wouldn’t attract a scoff similar to today’s Hardball’s.  If that happened, Nigeria would have won.

So far, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abass, has appointed 35 aides after taking the oath of office last month. On June 15, he named Musa Krishi as his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, and Dr Jerry Uhuo as the Special Adviser on Policy and Strategy. About two weeks later, he appointed 33 more aides for “effective delivery of his legislative agenda for the 10th House of Representatives.”

It’s unclear why Abass, representing Zaria Federal Constituency of Kaduna State, thinks he needs 35 aides to effectively carry out his work as speaker. Also, it’s unclear if he will increase the number of aides at some point.

Aged 59, and a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), he was elected to the House of Representatives in 2011, and had served three terms before his election as speaker this year.

Read Also : House Speaker: Why Tajudeen Abass fits the bill 

 He was said to have sponsored the highest number of bills in the 8th assembly (2015 to 2019); and also, an unprecedented 74 bills in the next one (2019 to 2023), out of which 21 were signed into law. His legislative experience includes past membership of various legislative committees, such as the ones on Commerce, Finance, Special Duties, Defence, Public Procurement, National Planning and Economic Development, and Land Transport.

Some time ago, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that some members of the National Assembly, “especially principal officers, have more than the statutorily approved number of aides in their employ, who also draw their salary from the assembly’s funds.”  

According to NAN, “It was also revealed that many legislators draw the emolument of their aides from the assembly’s funds but pay them fractions. Some of the lawmakers employed only one or two aides but are collecting the full salary for the five they are entitled to.” 

These contribute to the high cost of governance. How many aides is Abass officially allowed to have as speaker? Has he gone beyond the number?  Obviously, the number of aides he appointed has implications for the cost of governance, and raises the question whether he needs as many as 35 aides.  

The observable high cost of governance, at the federal and state levels, remains a big issue in the country. The large number of aides appointed by Abass is unjustifiable.

The immediate past speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila of the APC (2019 to 2023), who is now Chief of Staff to President Bola Tinubu, appointed 33 aides at the beginning of his speakership. Was that justifiable? Abass may well be following a precedent. That does not justify his bloated team of aides.