Category: Hardball

Ebonyi State Governor David Umahi swore in four new commissioners into his cabinet last Tuesday, with less than 20 days to the expiration of his second and final term of office as governor. The ‘lucky four’ were until their new appointment aides of the governor: three as senior special assistants and the fourth a special assistant. Like everyone else whose tenure falls within the election cycle, the governor leaves office on 29th May and will be taking a seat in the 10th National Assembly as senator representing Ebonyi South district.

During the oath-taking at Government House in Abakaliki, Umahi charged the new commissioners to use the brief opportunity they have to leave a legacy of service to the state and humanity. You could say the brevity of time available to them was further underscored by the fact that at the same forum, the governor also swore-in members of the 29th May handover committee.

Mr. Governor must have his reasons for considering it important to install new commissioners simultaneously with preparing for exiting office, but those reasons aren’t self-evident. It is highly debatable that the new appointees have enough time to settle into office, much less do anything in exercise of the office. Interestingly, reports about the commissioners’ swearing-in didn’t even indicate what specific portfolios they were assigned, who they were replacing and what happened to those being replaced. Chances are the outgoing cabinet was being enlarged, and the new appointees may have gotten the commissionership as sinecure jobs to enhance their exit package when the government winds out soon. This, perhaps, would be in payment for their loyal services hitherto to the governor. Only the governor isn’t paying with his money, Ebonyi people are with their commonwealth.

Government is a continuum and late-term appointments aren’t in themselves objectionable, especially where these are career or tenured appointments that fall due in the closing days of the appointer’s own tenure. In the last week of April, Governor Umahi swore-in six permanent secretaries and seven members of the state’s anti-corruption body. At the oath-taking, he assured the appointees they would not be removed by the incoming administration of Governor-elect Francis Nwifuru, even as he vowed not to interfere with the new dispensation. And he didn’t post the perm secs: “Go back to your respective places of work, your tenure is not ending with me. The only person I am posting now is the permanent secretary, Lagos Liaison; the rest will be done after I have consulted the governor-elect,” he told them. In all those, the governor was on good ground. But the appointment of commissioners two weeks to exit can’t be likewise rationalised.

Anest of intrigues: that leapt out of a story The Nation published on Sunday, May 14, announcing the Passion Alliance Forum (PANFO), a new political association peopled by defectors from the Lagos Labour Party (LP).

Linked to the allegations of forgery (now before a court) that has rocked the LP national front, Hardball just wonders what LP is bringing to the table, to birth a “new” Nigeria, beyond Peter Obi’s cocktail of cant, lies and sweet revelry.

Obi’s LP candidacy is being contested before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), just as Prof. Ifagbemi Awamaridi is challenging Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour’s claim to the Lagos LP gubernatorial ticket.

But what Hardball prefers to call PANFO tales offer a lot more in crass partisan under-cutting, by characters claiming to project a new deal, yet are steeped in old ruinous ways, far more dubious than the established political parties they thumb down.

Kayode Salako, the PANFO founder/chairman, who claimed he was elbowed out of his Lagos LP chair, lamented the ‘new’ LP type of politics — alleging it was worse than that of APC and PDP.

Sour grape?  Salako would appear yet another partisan treasure hunter like Obi: from APC to LP and now, PANFO; just as Obi’s travel from APGA to PDP to LP — and who knows what Obi’s future holds?

Still, how about this claim by Dayo Ekong, Salako’s successor as Lagos LP chair: “GRV represents what the LP ideology is all about,” she boomed. “Salako to me represents the old system, the old ways of APC and PDP.  And there is no doubt that with the values of LP, Salako does not represent what LP stands for.”

Values!  Pray, what else does LP stand for but partisan prostitution, from the days of Dan Iwuanyanwu and Segun Mimiko — Mimiko, after using and dumping LP, not only raced to PDP but also, to boot, formed Zenith Labour Party (ZLP)! 

And in that culture of rank opportunism, didn’t Akin Osuntokun abandon his ZLP Ekiti senatorial ticket (an empty shell, to be sure), to clamber on board as the DG of the LP presidential campaign platform, after Doyin Okupe’s fall?  And didn’t Obi forge LP into his cynical clannish/faith shield?

No wonder: despite GRV’s execrable election-season behaviour, anyone can brand him the new spirit of LP! 

Still, caught in this crass crossfire is a lone honourable man: Segun Adewale, aka Aeroland. 

“Forever”, Aeroland had contested the Lagos West Senate seat, on PDP platform.  Forever, he had lost — his latest in 2023.  But being a veteran loser has not made him to dump his PDP.  Now, that’s rare honour in Nigeria’s notorious party quicksands.

Yet, that irony was totally lost on Mrs. Ekong: GRV, a PDP mole in LP (the pawn of Chief Bode George: go and verify!), who pushed for PDP’s Areoland, and yet was the new soul and spirit of Lagos LP!

LP has no soul, beyond rank opportunism.  Now, it has imbibed Peter Obi’s customary cant and brazen lies.  For a party, that’s worse than COVID-19 at its most virulent. 

That’s the long and short of the Lagos PANFO tales — of plotters and losers.  No wonder too, on the national front, LP is falling apart …

Outlawed separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), seems tangled up in conflicting codes it issues to people of the Southeast region that it claims to be its sphere of nationalistic interest. It once asked the people to sit at home on Mondays, and in another breadth retracted and advised them to go about their routine chores. But every now and then, it reverts to the same call that has bled the region’s economy pale and hobbled other aspects of societal life there.

The group had in August 2021 declared ‘ghost Mondays’ as an intended 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, actually it compounded his fate. But following that order, the region was 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 to work on Mondays or face sanction. Apparently smitten by the crushing impact on the region, IPOB soon withdrew the order and asked residents to resist rogue enforcers who it claimed were not its agents and against whom it threatened counter-measures. The region is only just recovering from the incurred paralysis and straining for normalcy.

Amidst that dislocation, IPOB frequently re-invokes the sit-at-home order. The latest is its declaration of 30th May as a day to honour its fallen heroes and those who died during the 1967-70 Nigerian Civil War. “This year’s event will be special, and the one-day sit-at-home in ‘Biafraland’ will be total and will be from 6am to 6pm on May 30, 2023. Every economic, social, religious and political activity in ‘Biafraland’ will be suspended with the exception of hospitals, doctors, nurses, ambulances, and other health workers,” the group’s spokesperson Emma Powerful said in a statement last Monday. He added inter alia: “We, therefore, advise Biafrans and other residents in Biafra territory to avoid endangering their lives or their businesses by obeying the sit-at-home order from IPOB’s leadership.”

Notice: the same group that had often disavowed violent enforcement of sit-at-homes was giving a dark hint of violence to enforce the 30th May order. In an earlier statement mid-April, it had asked that the day be marked peacefully, saying: “IPOB family members should organise and observe this date in any form each country, zone, or unit considers best. IPOB leadership advises all to maintain peace and order during the event.” Now, there’s threat of violent enforcement of sit-at-home.

If IPOB has the interest of the Southeast in view, it should realise that its code-switching gridlocks the paralysis that everyone, including itself, wants relieved.

May 9: The irony was completely lost on President Vladimir Putin and his captive Russian crowd, desperate to celebrate any triumph.

Since 1945, Russia has seized every May 9 to celebrate its great World War 2 victory over Hitler and Nazi Germany.  May 8, 1945 (May 9, old Soviet Union: the surrender happened after 12 midnight, local time) was when Germany surrendered in Berlin. 

But after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea (International law and boundaries be damned); and Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, now one year and counting, even Putin’s inner voice would blare at him how he had become Russia’s Hitler; and his regime a neo-Nazi one. 

Which is why Putin, at this year’s victory parade, sounded so hollow: branding Ukraine a Nazi criminal state;  and Russia, some Salvation Army.  Yet, it’s Putin — not Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy — that has International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant over his head.

Indeed, the stark parallel, between Nazi Germany and neo-Nazi Russia; and Hitler and Putin, appears completely lost on Putin and regime hench(wo)men, as their February 2022 invasion of Ukraine continues to stutter.

For starters, Soviet Union (incidentally containing Ukraine, next to only Russia; Belarus, Georgia and others) lost 27 million souls in what the defunct superpower behemoth dubbed the “Great Patriotic War”, but still vanquished Hitler.

It’s not clear how many defenceless Ukrainians invading Russia has despatched — especially in reckless, devil-may-care bombings of civilian areas.  Yet, by its troops’ faltering on the fronts proper, Russia’s victory is not at all assured — in an ill-advised invasion planned to last no more than one week, at most, but which now drags.

Besides, the tragic collapse of Hitler and cult appears a riveting nightmare for Putin and co.  Like Hitler, Putin annexed international territories.  Like Nazis, Russia ogles Ukraine’s land, wealth and even children, thus landing Putin in ICC, in alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

For whatever reason — genuine or pretext — Putin’s Russia lash out at a weaker Ukraine, because it felt it could and get away with it: just as Nazi Germany, at Poland et al.

Yes, Russia may have had legit security fears, of a NATO expansion sucking in Ukraine, a clear goal of the Zelenskyy order. 

Yet, by blundering into the invasion of 2022, after the Cremia annexation of 2014, Putin not only exhibited the neo-Nazi in him, he also put Russia exactly where the America and Europe, hiding behind international law and order, want him.

It’s self-imposed tragedy for Putin which may well crash his regime and bring Russia further woes — no tears from here. 

The alternative would have been 1946, when the League of Nations (1920-1946) collapsed, just because belligerent powers (feigning national hurt and pride: then, Hitler and his Nazi Germany; now, Putin and neo-Nazi Russia), couldn’t resist bullying weaker nations, thus causing World War 2. 

That catastrophe should not happen to the UN.  So,  let Russia carry its can.

Ancients taught that when you hear a general alarm to do away with a particular thing, you do well to earnestly plug into the crusade or that thing could be dumped in your own backyard. That would seem the sense to make out of the scare lately plied over the safety for consumption of Indomie noodles, a favourite staple in many Nigerian homes especially among young ones.

The alarm about the safety of Indomie arose from reports penultimate week that health officials in Malaysia and Taiwan had recalled the noodles brand because they detected a compound called ethylene oxide in the ‘special chicken’ flavor of the product. Ethylene oxide is a colorless, odorless gas used in sterilising medical devices and spices, and has been described as a cancer-causing chemical. Nigeria is one of the largest instant noodle markets in the world and Indomie is the “market leader in the noodles industry in Nigeria,” according to Indonesian food giant, Indofoods, which owns the brand. As the first instant noodles brand, it debuted in 1972 though did not become popular in the Nigerian market until the ‘90s.

Health officials in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, said they detected ethylene oxide in two types of instant noodles, including the Indomie brand, following random inspections. According to the health department, the detected substance did not comply with prescribed standards. On their part, the Malaysian health officials said they were taking enforcement actions and therefore recalled the affected products.

In Nigeria, National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, allayed fears that the hazardous substance is in the local market, saying her agency had taken proactive steps to screen the market. For one, she said the ‘special chicken’ flavour was not registered by the agency for sale in this country and importation of noodles is banned, being on the import prohibition list. Besides, the agency has commenced random sampling and analysis of Indomie noodles. “NAFDAC, as a responsible and responsive regulator, is taking swift actions to carry out random sampling and analysis of Indomie noodles (including the seasoning) for the presence of ethylene oxide, as well as extending the investigation to other brands of instant noodles offered for sale to Nigerians,” a statement by the agency said. For its part, the maker of Indomie Noodles in Nigeria, Dufil Prima Foods Plc, has been reported saying its products are 100 percent locally produced and are safe for consumption.

The reassurances are helpful, but both NAFDAC and the local product manufacturer should explain whether the product ingredients were not patented for the international franchise. If not, NAFDAC may need to recertify the brand and stake its reputation on guaranteeing Nigerians their safety with the brand. 

The Onaiyekan doctrine just came out of the blue — that every president (or governor, by extension) having an electoral case must not be sworn in until that case is resolved. 

So, the holy father would rather President-elect Bola Tinubu’s May 29 inauguration be shelved, until the Supreme Court — the last of the two-stage judicial arbiters — pronounces on the case.

The retired Cardinal of the Catholic Church pleaded a democratic right to free speech and opinion — no crime, to be sure. 

But in his heart of heart, he would wish it was a theocracy, where his Catholic Church was the deep state, reeling out diktats to an ecclesiastical court, to turn white into blue, and blue into white, in holy whim!

It’s classical Freudian slip from our Lord Spiritual, lusting after temporal caprices in high political sweepstakes, after backing a losing — nay, totally lost — horse!

Hardball’s apologies, Cardinal: it’s a democracy!  Nearly added “stupid!”, as in Bill Clinton’s famous swipe: “It’s the economy, stupid!”

The good John Cardinal Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, retired Archbishop of Abuja, had been a Nigerian statist all his religious life; taking time off to “speak truth to power” (as that cliche goes to rile up the masses, from his pulpit) though he was part and parcel of the establishment.

He was in this polity, not only all through the best forgotten era of military rule, but since 2003 when the Supreme Court firmly established the judicial grundnorm of executive swearing-ins and judicial challenge of elections. 

Can’t remember the holy father raising his voice in 2003, or 2007, or 2011, or 2015, or 2019?  So, why 2023? 

Read Also: Cardinal Onaiyekan forcing God to join partisan party – Onoh

Who will tell truth to the Church on their ignoble role in the 2023 elections; and even after having crashed, they still stay glued to the wide and merry way, which their Lord, Jesus Christ, warned only led to destruction and perdition?

The Muhammadu Buhari Presidency, with its high-profile war against corruption and the president’s near-ascetic personal temper, is clearly the most puritanical in Nigerian history.

But instead of rallying against sleaze — the common enemy — what have these holy fathers done?  Father Matthew Kukah, Catholic Archbishop of Sokoto, would rather direct his Southern Kaduna bile, veiled by his holy cassock, cocking shot guns at a “Fulani” president.

Winners Bishop David Oyedepo, the “Yes Daddy” of Ota, fumed at the Buhari order all through, from his unfazed temple of holy mammon.

Now, retired Cardinal Onaiyekan is railing against the president-elect’s inauguration, simply because Peter Obi that they all backed lost — in a comical bid to discredit clearly Nigeria’s best election since 1999, perhaps ever?  Maybe because it was conducted by a “hated” Fulani?

With the latest Onaiyekan outburst, it should be clear the Oyedepo-Obi “Yes Daddy” phone call is a far wider conspiracy, with “religious war” zealots spread far and wide.

But who will tell truth to the Church over its execrable conduct over the 2023 elections?

The opening yarn, on the “Yes Daddy” phone call, was that it was fake.  Then, in almost the same breath, it was “doctored”. 

That pushed Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Information and Culture minister — and quite a few others — to ask: which was which?  Can you “doctor” a fakery — which never existed?

Then, next to Peter Gregory Obi‘s London odyssey, near Easter.  The opening gambit from his LP presidential platform was that UK Customs officials questioned Obi for “a long time”; virtually swearing it took the intervention of Nigerians to get him off the hook.  That was days after Obi, talkative most times, had kept it all hush-hush.

Weeks after, Obi suddenly found his voice on his London experience: “I was never arrested, I was never detained.  And I did not commit any offence,” he told Arise TV.  “I was stopped for a routine immigration check because there appeared to be a duplication of my identity and all this lasted for a maximum of 20 minutes.”

LP: Obi was questioned for “a long time”.  Obi: “It lasted for a maximum of 20 minutes”.  The truth?  Go and verify!

Read Also : Obi admits making phone call to Oyedepo

Still, doing that, compare and contrast the many yarns in-between: that the UK authorities had “apologized” for holding Obi, which Obi himself said was a flat lie; and, of course Obi’s latest claim to Arise that “I did not commit any offence”; to his earlier musing that he knowingly couldn’t have committed any offence; and why his story keeps on changing, perhaps with the expression on his face!

Welcome to the fib world of Obi, where fresh yarns fervently wait to displace old ones!  The world of the holy presidential candidate hasn’t changed much — or is it likely to ever change — from his grand entry of colourful stats, euphemism for brazen numeric lies to which he and his no-less-brazen acolytes always challenged folks to “go verify!”

Still, the “Yes Daddy” audio takes the cake.  So embarrassing was it that both Obi and Winners Bishop David Oyedepo flatly denied it ever happened.  Now, it happened, though with no talk of “religious war”!

Why, the good Bishop even bragged back then he had never supported any partisan push, despite his near-weekly railings from his pulpit. 

But in December 2022 (The Nation reported the story on 18 December 2022), Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon, chairman of Kaduna State Peace Commission (KAPECOM), openly rebuked Oyedepo for his statement, hot fresh and smoking from his pulpit: “The number of people who vote for APC in 2023 will determine the number of mad people in Nigeria.”  So long for the apolitical bishop!

Five months after, the spiritual Oyedepo’s temporal collaborator was swearing he never uttered “religious war” in their scandalous telephone conversation; and claiming he’s no bigot, despite, during electioneering, goading the church to “take back your country”!

Again, go and verify!  It’s Obi’s fantastic and colourful universe!

For the umpteenth time, resident doctors have served notice of an imminent strike unless government swiftly meets their demands. The National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), at the weekend, gave the Federal Government a two-week ultimatum to act or face industrial disharmony.

In a communiqué at the end of its extraordinary national executive council meeting in Abeokuta, Ogun State, which lasted from Thursday till Saturday, the doctors’ body demanded immediate increment in the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS) to the tune of 200 percent of the current gross salaries of doctors, in addition to new allowances itemised in a letter written to Health Minister Dr. Osagie Ehanire on 7th July, last year.  Other demands by the doctors include immediate withdrawal of a bill being processed by the House of Representatives that seeks to compel medical and dental graduates to render five-year compulsory services in Nigeria before being granted full licence to practise.

The communiqué signed by NARD President Dr. Emeka Orji, Secretary-General Dr. Chikezie Kelechi, and Publicity and Social Secretary Dr. Umar Musa, also read in part: “NEC demands immediate payment of the 2023 Medical Residency Training Fund in line with the agreements reached at the stakeholders’ meeting convened by the Federal Ministry of Health at the Honourable Minister of State for Health’s conference room. NEC demands the commencement of payment of all salary arrears owed to our members, including 2014, 2015 and 2016 salary arrears as well as arrears of the consequential adjustment of the minimum wage… NEC resolved to issue the government a two-week ultimatum beginning today (Saturday), 29th April 2023, to resolve all these demands, following the expiration of which on the 13th of May, 2023, we may not be able to guarantee industrial harmony in the sector.”

Health Minister Ehanire was reported saying government was working towards addressing the doctors’ demands before the deadline expires.

It’s a shame it always comes to daggers drawn before doctors get the attention of government on matters over which there had been negotiations and some measure of agreement previously. But Hardball thinks resident doctors themselves are overreaching in wielding the weapon of strike, which if carried through incurs enormous distress on hapless Nigerians who are in no way complicit in matters that drove them to the trenches. Strikes and threats of strike have become default options in a profession where the foundational code of practice – the Hippocratic Oath – mandates sensitivity to sanctity of life. Besides, this latest war cry is wrongly timed: at barely two weeks to the advent of a new administration. The doctors should hold their fire and allow the new administration  to get a handle on the issues.