Category: Hardball

Zamfara State police command has returned all vehicles its agents recently seized from the homes of former state governor, Bello Matawalle. There were no fewer than 40 vehicles among other items impounded during a raid on his private residences in Gusau the state capital, and Maradun his hometown, on 9th June by police personnel along with agents of the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).

The invasion of Matawalle’s homes had been at the instigation of the new administration of Governor Dauda Lawal, who took over on 29th May and accused his predecessor of making away with government vehicles. Meanwhile, the security agencies had also purported they were acting on due leave of a court. But the ex-governor approached the judiciary to challenge the confiscation of what he claimed to be personal property, whereas the Zamfara police command asked him to tender proof of ownership to reclaim the impounded vehicles.

In a suit instituted by Matawalle, the Federal High Court in Gusau, on 15th June, gave a 48-hour ultimatum for all confiscated items, including the vehicles, to be returned and domiciled in its custody pending the determination of the applicant’s Substantive Originating Motion. Justice Aminu Bappa-Aliyu also gave an order of interim injunction restraining the respondents comprising the Nigeria Police, the Inspector-General of Police, the Zamfara Commissioner of Police, the DSS and NSCDC from taking further steps on the matter and staying all action pending the hearing and determination of the motion. He fixed 28th June for further proceedings.

Read Also: Most of my vehicles purchased before I became governor, says Matawalle

The Zamfara police command confirmed last weekend that it had returned the vehicles as ordered by the court. “Yes, the police command has complied with the court order as regards returning of all vehicles belonging to the former governor, Bello Matawalle. We have returned all the vehicles to the premises of Federal High Court, Gusau. As I speak to you now, no single vehicle is in police custody,” command spokesman Yazid Abubakar, an Assistant Superintendent of Police, was reported saying. Suleiman Idris, spokesperson to Governor Lawal had earlier said more than 40 vehicles were recovered from Matawalle’s two houses. He also confirmed that security agencies took action on the directive of the state government.

It is either that the security services never bothered to involve the judiciary before invading Matawalle’s residences to impound the vehicles; or if they did, then the courts are issuing conflicting orders over the matter. The latter scenario requires that the judiciary put its house in order; and if the former, then the security services must again learn the hard lesson of showing respect for the rule of law.

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.

“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.

Read Also: Kano State Assembly adopts motion to end gang violence, thuggery, crime

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.

Who would have thought the Nigerian Correctional Service Ikoyi Custodial Centre in Lagos, also known as Ikoyi Prisons, lacked vehicles to transport inmates to court regularly? The Deputy Comptroller and Officer in charge of Ikoyi Prisons, Julius Ogueri, was recently reported to have appealed for a vehicle donation for this purpose.

He made the appeal during a ceremony to open the renovated and equipped Lagos Ikoyi Lions Club Vocational Centre at the correctional facility.  He painted a picture that exposed the scale of the problems facing the prison.

He lamented: “We have a lot of challenges. One is the challenge of how to convey the inmates to the courts because most of our vehicles are unserviceable. We had a situation where one of our vehicles conveying inmates to court broke down on the way, we had to look for an alternative vehicle to transport them to court. This is a security risk and embarrassing.”

How long has the transportation of inmates been problematic at the prison, and what moves have been made by the prison authorities to solve the problem? The prison chief didn’t supply answers. 

“The inmates want to go to court as this gives them hope of getting their freedom,” he was reported saying, adding, “The Lions Club and other charity organisations should help us with a vehicle to enable us to take the inmates to courts regularly.”

Read Also: I was not part of search for kidney donor, says Ekweremadu’s wife

Prison authorities should not depend on donations from charity organisations; but the situation at the Ikoyi Prisons suggests that those in charge of the facility are heavily dependent on donations.  

President of Ikoyi Lions Club, Taiwo Raji, noted that the vocational centre project dates back to 1994.  He pointed out the centre has been equipped with sewing machines, shoe-making machines, carpentry and furniture machines and accessories, among others.

It is commendable that the club donated such a facility to Ikoyi Prisons. But it raises questions about how well the prison authorities are carrying out their responsibilities, if they depend so much on donations. 

Major prison problems in Nigeria include inadequate funding, poor welfare conditions and dilapidated infrastructure. Lack of operational vehicles, highlighted at the Ikoyi Prisons ceremony, may well be connected with poor funding.

The Nigerian Correctional Service, the Ministry of Interior, and the Federal Government, should not abandon their responsibilities concerning the country’s prisons, and hope that charity organisations will provide prison necessities through donations. That is an irresponsible approach to correctional administration.    

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson quit his House of Commons seat last Friday, saying he was being forced out of the parliament over ‘partygate.’ Partygate is the codename for the scandal triggered by media expose showing that the former premier presided over a series of boisterous parties at 10 Downing Street in 2020/21 at a time the rest of the United Kingdom and, indeed, much of the global community were on lockdown over the deadly Covid-19 pandemic. Johnson’s administration had enacted rules mandating social distancing for all Britons, whereas he and close associates were holding booze parties and weren’t at all observing social distancing. Partygate was key among reasons there was a ministers’ revolt that forced Mr. Johnson to resign his premiership in September 2022.

After seeing in advance a report by the Commons Privileges Committee that probed whether he lied to the parliament over the lockdown parties, the ex-premier who had retained his Commons seat representing Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency in west London, threw in his resignation. Effectively though, he only jumped before he was pushed. The damning report would most likely have resulted in his being suspended from the Commons as punishment for misleading the parliament.

In his 1,000-word letter of resignation, Johnson berated the Commons panel as a “kangaroo court” whose purpose “has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts.” He said the draft report he had seen was “riddled with inaccuracies and reeks of prejudice,” adding that the panel used its proceedings “against me to drive me out of parliament.” He added: “They have still not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons.” The ex-premier had previously admitted to misleading the parliament when he gave evidence during the hearing in March, though he denied doing it on purpose.

Defending itself against M `r. Johnson’s tirades, the inter-party committee of MPs, which has a majority of its membership drawn from the Conservative Party to which Johnson belongs, said it had “followed the procedures and the mandate of the House at all time and will continue to do so.” A spokesperson of the panel was reported adding: “Mr. Johnson has departed from the processes of the House and has impugned the integrity of the House by his statement. The committee will meet on Monday to conclude the inquiry and to publish its report promptly.”

The former prime minister has been an MP since 2001 – though not continuously, having served as mayor of London between 2008 and 2016. His exit from the Commons climaxed reprisals for his poor leadership showing in making regulations for everyone that he himself broke. He had this coming to him.  

For the most reckless comment on the suspension of Godwin Emefiele, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, look no farther than that of Chima Uzor, who claimed to be the Ohanaeze Ndigbo’s director of national interest matters.

“To say the least,” Uzor barked, “this suspension is without due process and the arrest, despite a court order against DSS from arresting him, is provocative; and well-meaning Nigerians must resist and ensure it does not stand.  We view the development,” he darkly warned, “as clearly part of the new administration’s scheme of ethnic cleansing of the Igbos from public offices.  This is nothing” he insisted, “but a witch-hunt directed at the Igbos for no other reason other than they dared to oppose the new administration in the last general election.”

And how about this for a roaring clincher of a final and triumphal threat: “We are therefore asking President Bola Tinubu to beware of starting his administration with actions capable of driving an already shaking nation into chaos”?

What rubbish! 

It’s good though, that Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, the Ohaneze president-general, swiftly countermanded Uzor in a statement Iwuanyanwu personally signed; dismissing Uzor as an impostor unknown to the body, stating Ohanaeze had no office for national interest matters. Just as well!

Read Also: Iwuanwanyu: Ohanaeze has no intention to interfere with Emefiele’s probe

“Ohanaeze … has no intention whatsoever to interfere with the investigations by the DSS or other security agencies of the country.  Individuals,” he reasoned, “have a right to go to court and when the court of law proves the individual innocent, and Ohanaeze is convinced that the individual is innocent, Ohanaeze will take every step necessary to assist the individual.”

That is wisdom.  That is common sense.  That is due process.  Any other thing is balderdash — and that’s the sum total of Uzor’s rookie outpouring.

To start with, the release teems with ignorance: suspension of the CBN governor opposes no due process.  It’s within the president’s powers.  What the president can’t do is a summary sack: he would need two-third majority of the Senate to do that.

And mischief: does Atiku Abubakar, a prominent northerner running in the 2023 presidential election, now equate the ‘North’ “daring to oppose” the winner of that election?  What sub-clannish thinking!

But the one that rankles most is the hare-brained malice: Emefiele’s suspension as ethnic cleansing of the Igbo from public office!  Where did that mind spring — from the darkest pit of Plato’s allegory of the cave?

Lost souls, like Uzor, can’t help the Igbo — or any other people.  It’s so embarrassing that it stresses yet again a golden silence, instead of spewing plain rubbish.  It’s good the rookie has been shut down by the right quarters.

Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the proscribed separatist group, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has yet again shown that his detention and trial have not changed him.

 This reported tweet by his lawyer, Aloy Ejimakor, on June 6, showed the same old Kanu and the same old separatist spirit: “Personal Message from Mazi Nnamdi Kanu: “I deeply appreciate the abiding solidarity of the people of Biafra & the entire IPOB noble family against my continued illegal detention.

“I assure you all that our pursuit of self-determination to its logical conclusion is non-negotiable.”

IPOB is known for using terroristic methods in its fight for an independent “Biafra land” made up of Nigeria’s five Southeast states, and parts of the South-south geo-political zone.

 Some days before the lawyer delivered Kanu’s message, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, a civil rights advocacy group, appealed to President Tinubu to release him in the interest of national reconciliation.

Also, Enugu State Governor Peter Mbah recently made a plea to Tinubu to grant the IPOB leader’s release and hand him over to any of the Southeast governors.  “We believe that his release will expedite the healing process Nigeria needs at this time,” he said, adding that releasing Kanu would demonstrate the Tinubu administration’s “extension of brotherly hands of fellowship to Ndigbo.”

Read Also: Bury retrogressive separatist idea, Igbos told

In January, Anambra State Governor Charles Soludo made a “passionate appeal” to the federal government under former President Muhammadu Buhari to release the detainee “unconditionally.” He said: “If he cannot be released unconditionally, I want him released to me and I will stand surety for him.”

IPOB maintains that the Court of Appeal, Abuja, on October 13, 2022, “discharged and acquitted the leader of IPOB and all the remaining eight-count amended charges preferred against him, and consequently directed for his unconditional release.”

This is not the whole truth. The Court of Appeal, Abuja, on October 28, 2022, ordered that the enforcement of the judgement releasing Kanu be put on hold pending the resolution of the federal government’s appeal filed at the Supreme Court. So, it is untrue that Kanu is being detained unlawfully, as IPOB claims.

He was first arrested in October 2015, and granted bail in April 2017 in the course of his trial for “alleged offences of conspiracy to commit acts of treasonable felony and other related offences.” He fled the country in September 2017, and was re-arrested in Kenya and brought back to Nigeria in June 2021.

 Those pleading for Kanu’s release should take note of his unchanged separatist stance. He makes their pleas ineffective by sticking to the same old position.    

Newly-inaugurated Enugu State Governor Peter Mbah assumed office last week with the zest of a jinx-breaker. He ordered immediate end to ‘ghost Mondays’ that had been in force since August 2021 when outlawed separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), called residents of the Southeast out on weekly sit-at-home intended as a weapon to force the hand of government on the arrest and trial of its leader, Nnamdi Kanu. Not that this achieved much in alleviating Kanu’s ordeal. But the region has been grounded every Monday, with commerce and other businesses including transportation, corporates, fuel stations and schools paralysed. Even government offices were shut despite threats by respective state government that employees must report for work on Mondays or face sanction.

Owing to crushing effect on the region’s economy and its residents, IPOB has since ostensibly withdrawn the order and asked residents to go about their routine chores. But enforcers of ‘ghost Mondays’ that IPOB claimed were not its agents had often wrought violence on residents who ventured out in defiance of the sit-at-home order, with some assaults resulting in fatalities. Such trend had made residents ignore counter-orders against ‘ghost Monday,’ leaving most areas paralysed weekly with massive haemorrhage in corporate as well as individual economies. The region has been straining for return to normalcy ever since.

Read Also: Sit-at-home: Mbah hails residents’ compliance with cancellation

Governor Mbah on Friday, last week, overruled the weekly sit-at-home and ordered summary closure of any organisation that fails to open for business on Mondays. Reports this past Monday, however, indicated that the directive did little in bringing Enugu residents out, with many confessing that fear of the unknown prevented them from venturing out of their homes as they did not have sufficient confidence in government’s ability to guarantee their safety. Police and military patrol vehicles were deployed on many Enugu streets while police helicopters hovered in the sky to bolster security. But most establishments like banks, motor parks, fuel stations and schools did not operate business. Reports said though the gates of schools and markets were open, there were no students and teachers or traders respectively to be seen; government offices were as well bare of workers while banks and fuel stations remained shut. The massive presence of security agents meant to reassure residents rather stoked unease in them and reversed the modest courage to return to routine ways that had built up over time.

In assessing the day’s outing, the Enugu governor reportedly expressed satisfaction with the level of compliance with his directive, which he put at about 60 percent though independent accounts estimated it at far less. The moral here is that confidence in one cannot be commanded, it is earned and that naturally takes time. 

Joe Ajaero’s Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) bolted into battle.  Pat, it ran into an ambush.  Now, it’s left to lick own wound.  In its lament, it claims the “government has procured a court injunction restraining congress …”

That might well be, even if “procurement” here is grumpy and in clear bad taste.  But you don’t smack a child and expect the child not to cry, do you?

Nevertheless, NLC should have been more honest with itself: the court intervention wouldn’t have arisen if it had had more tact; and resisted the temptation to flaunt its “aluta” macho, by declaring a premature strike.

Trade Union Congress (TUC) and NLC began initial talks.  That was May 31.  Both were to resume on June 4.  But instead of talks — which TUC did though it maintained its stance — NLC rushed to declare a strike, for which it couldn’t even boast overwhelming public support.

After getting hooked by the National Industrial Court (NIC) exparte injunction, it had no choice, shame-faced, but to rush back to belated talks to save face!  It was all absolutely unnecessary. 

Read Also: No agreement yet with Fed Govt over subsidy removal – Labour

You don’t flex muscles all of the time because you boast intimidating biceps!  After needlessly eating crow, Ajaero’s NLC must learn to be calmer — and wiser — next time.

Still, NLC must have been routed in the open salvos.  But that doesn’t mean it would lose the war.  Indeed, no one need lose any war.  As a matter of fact, there should be no war, if good sense prevails across the isle.

Subsidy removal is a big socio-economic disruptor that must be handled with utmost care.  That’s why the Federal Government and Organized Labour must be earnest with each other.  

There is a humongous, nay explosive, social cost to manage.  The government needs the cash from subsidy removal to make life easier for all.  Labour needs honest and quality information to explain the situation to its constituency, aside from securing them fair deals to tide them over.

What both need is a thriving and mutually beneficial partnership to vault past this challenging moment.  That is what the present situation demands; and both sides can secure it with mutual confidence building.

Let the government lead by offering reasonable proposals; and after, let its word be its bond, by faithfully implementing whatever agreement reached.  Let Labour approach the negotiations with patriotism and an open mind. 

Both can secure a win-win if they put their minds to it.  The country demands no less, at this very tetchy and delicate juncture.

There was something suspicious about the apparent rush by the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari to get Nigeria Air, the national carrier, flying in its last days. It looked like a sign of desperation for glory.  

“Operation of local and international flights will commence soon. Before the end of this administration, before May 29, we will fly,” the then Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, was reported saying at the National Aviation Stakeholders Forum 2023 in Abuja in March. It was two months before the inauguration of President Bola Tinubu.

On May 26, three days to the beginning of the Tinubu era, a Boeing 737 – 800 aircraft with the logo and livery of Nigeria Air landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja. The Federal Ministry of Aviation announced “the official unveiling of Nigeria Air on Friday, 26th May 2023, at 4 pm,” at the Nigerian Air Operations Centre, Abuja Airport.

Less than two weeks after, however, there are signs that the airline is, in a manner of speaking, wingless.  The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), in a statement, said that the promoters of the airline — the Federal Government and Ethiopian Airlines — did not go beyond the first stage of a five-stage certification process leading to the issuance of the Air Operators’ Certificate (AOC).

Read Also: ‘Release $802m to foreign carriers’

The airline is expected to meet the regulatory requirements of the Civil Aviation (Air Navigation) Regulations before the NCAA can issue the AOC with the appropriate specifications and ratings. It is after the issuance of the AOC that the airline can engage in commercial aviation activities in Nigeria.

It’s puzzling that the authorities misrepresented the airline’s status, giving the impression that its certification wasn’t an issue. 

 There are other cloudy issues concerning the airline’s takeoff.  Indeed, the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation was reported to have summoned the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Aviation, Emmanuel Meribole, to an emergency meeting on the project. 

The committee noted that “the nation was awash with viral reports and videos of the unveiling of the Nigeria Air project under very controversial circumstances.”

“As a committee of the parliament saddled with the responsibility of overseeing the aviation sector of the economy, we deem it necessary to be fully briefed about the project,” it said.

As things stand, the Ministry of Aviation, and indeed the Federal Government, have a lot of explaining to do. Nigeria Air can be described as wingless because it is uncertified, among other hampering issues. Flying without wings is impossible.    

There are times lawmaking becomes like prostitution: ‘Money for hand, back for ground’ as they say it in pidgin parlance. That was the mode members of the Benue State House of Assembly found themselves lately as the tenure of immediate past Governor Samuel Ortom wound out. The lawmakers had suspended their constitutional functions because of huge salary arrears owed them by the Ortom administration, but when that administration managed to defray part of the arrears, they held session solely to pass an executive bill intended by the administration to provide bogus life pension for ex-governors and their deputies.

Lawmaking can’t be more transactional! But it might well be a transaction in futility because whereas the bill got enacted under the former administration, it falls entirely on the new administration of Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia to implement the law. And the new administration has shown ample indication of not being keen to oblige.

The new pension legislation makes every former Benue governor entitled to a monthly stipend equivalent to the basic salary of a serving governor; and for former deputy governors, that of a serving office holder. Other benefits include N25million maintenance allowance for ex-governors and N15million for ex-deputies every four years, sponsored medical trips abroad yearly for the exes and their spouses, brand new vehicles – two for an ex-governor and one for an ex-deputy – to be replaced every four years, and a squad of personal staff respectively to be salaried from the state treasury. And that was only the whittled down slate of benefits as approved by the house: propositions by the Ortom administration had included  choice residential houses for former governors and deputy governors anywhere across Nigeria.

Owing to non-payment of their salary arrears for six months and running costs for three months by the executive arm, members the Benue assembly had early in May shelved their plenary specifically to frustrate legislative processing of the pension bill sent to them by ex-Governor Ortom for approval. But barely five days to the end of Ortom’s tenure, the lawmakers said they received bank alerts of the payment of three-month salary arrears and offsetting of outstanding overhead costs, upon which they summarily reconvened plenary and passed a degraded slate of executive pension benefits. “Yes, the house passed the bill just now but we reduced the contents badly,” House Minority Leader Bem Ngutyo was reported saying.

Prior to the legislative approval, Rev. Fr. Alia, then as Governor-elect, had criticized the bill. Now that he is in the saddle for implementation, and with the Ortom administration having bequeathed some N187.7billion debt obligation, you could bet the executive benefits deal is dead on arrival.