Category: Hardball

You give a dog a bad name to kill it — right?  What if you give yourself a bad name and, well, kill yourself?  Democratic suicide?  Or just a tragic error of judgment?

That appears the unenviable state of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its Monday sit-at-home strikes, which it introduced with a flurry but now tries to disown with a frenzy!  IPOB battles its own ghost and it’s not so pretty!

But flurry or frenzy, the constant here is Emma Powerful’s grandiloquence, as he puts a spin to the IPOB quandary.

“The global movement and family of IPOB under the command and leadership of our great leader Mazi Nnamdi Kanu wishes to state that nobody has the monopoly of attack,” Emma’s powerful voice boomed with its customized hyperbole. “We realize that some unscrupulous politicians and elements are recruiting cultists and criminals to attack our innocent citizens in the name of enforcing non-existent Monday sit-at-home in Biafraland, especially the ones in Enugu State and other states in Biafraland.”

Epiphany!

But you can’t but be cracked up by Emma’s latter-day diktat of “non-existent sit-at-home”.  He used his self-same “powerful” mouth to thunder fire and brimstone at anyone that dared to flout the original decree!  And politicians recruiting cultists to give IPOB a bad name?  Ha!

Truth is the diseased genie is out of the tragic bottle.  It would take more than grandiloquent bluff to capture and re-cork it!  Tough!

Still, you must empathize with IPOB in its present bind.  “IPOB”, Powerful declared, “cannot be part of the destruction of the same people we are labouring to emancipate” — spot on!  But the constant harassment, in its name, of innocent and helpless Igbo who just want to be push daily bread in peace, clearly doesn’t suggest that.

Which is why even as Hardball sympathizes with IPOB’s change of tack, IPOB must know it’s sheer lunacy to do stuff the same way, yet expect different results.

IPOB blundered into the ill-advised sit-at-home without thoroughly thinking it through. It was a spur-of-the-moment emotion, sweet then but very, very sour now.  IPOB can’t therefore blunder out of it, with the same old grandiloquent emotions.  It must think and think hard!

IPOB’s apparent lack of deep thinking is Emma Powerful’s threat to unleash its Eastern Security Network (ESN) on the alleged “base fellows [that] unleash mayhem on innocent Biafrans”.  Between these alleged hoodlums and ESN, what’s the difference, even in the eye of the besieged Ndigbo? Six and half-a-dozen?

IPOB deserves praise for wanting to put things right.  It’s an act of courage to pause and change direction, when you realize all you risk is blunder into the jungle, blinded by sweet emotions.

But it must go the whole hog — no half measures.  That is why its communications must be deep — clinical and persuasive reason to force urgent behavioural change.

Playing the loud superman, as Emma Powerful tried to do in this release, just exposes the loud helplessness — and emptiness — of an IPOB at the end of its tether.

A two-man delegation of the House of Representatives left Abuja last week to observe the evacuation of Nigerians caught up in the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The delegation comprising House Leader, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa and Chairman, Foreign Affairs Committee, Buba Yakub, was sent on the trip by the Green chamber following a motion on the House floor about the plight of Nigerians fleeing Ukraine amidst Russia’s assault.

Russia had launched her invasion of Ukraine penultimate Thursday, leaving many Nigerians along with other foreign nationals and Ukrainians themselves heading to neighbouring Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania in a scramble for safety. President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday, last week, approved $8.5million for immediate evacuation of some 5,000 Nigerians stranded as a result of the Russo-Ukrainian hostility – same day that chartered flights operated by Air Peace and Max Air left Nigeria to begin hauling back the evacuees from those countries neighbouring Ukraine. The House delegation, however, did not await those chartered flights and travelled out of this country on a Turkish Airlines flight. Its arrival in Romania was reported in the media.

Meanwhile, Nigeria had an operational team on ground in the Ukrainian border regions led by the Director, Consular and Legal Services in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bolaji Akinremi, and involving ambassadors to Ukraine’s neighbouring countries along with their staff to execute the evacuation operations. When there was a hitch in the evacuation schedule warranting a 24-hour delay in the return of evacuees to Nigeria, it fell on this team to provide explanation and rejig the plan to get the affected Nigerians back home. Rather than last Thursday as earlier scheduled, the first batch of evacuees arrived in Abuja by 7:11a.m. on Friday, while another batch came in on Friday evening. In Abuja, the evacuees were received at the airport by officials of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).

Legislative sensitivity to the plight of Nigerian nationals caught up in the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a positive thing and the House must be commended for this. But the value addition in a House delegation going all the way to observe the evacuation operations in Ukraine’s border regions is highly debatable. For instance, what exactly was the role of the delegation in the evacuation operations beyond passive sight-seeing, and did this justify the expenditure of public funds on the travel expenses including air fares, estacodes, lodging and other conveniences of the honourable members? The spuriousness of the trip showed forth in the fact that delegation members shunned the chartered flights dispatched from Nigeria in preference for a foreign commercial flight, and that their presence made no difference to the one-day delay in the evacuation schedule. With due respect to the House, the trip smacked strongly of a junket.

The hunter: Russia, as it blasts its way through Ukraine with savage intensity. The hunted: Russia again, by America, the European Union and, judging from the UN General Assembly resolution on the crisis, most nations of the world (141 countries) that just decried Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.  As Russia blasts through Ukraine with heavy tanks, missiles and grenades, America and the West are blasting through Russia with crippling economic sanctions, fast turning the Russian Rouble into pitiful rubbles.

The haunted: Russian oligarchs, pronounced guilty by association with Vladimir Putin, one man crazy enough to proclaim a medieval-like doctrine of might-is-right; even after Hitler’s World War 2 rampaging madness, which shock and horror birthed the United Nations and the current international order.

The first victim, among the haunted, is clearly Roman Abramovich, the Russian owner of Chelsea FC of London, sitting champions of Europe and newly crowned World Clubs Cup champions.  But even with all that, the latest optics are not good for Chelsea.

At that symbolic juncture when Russia invaded Ukraine, Kepa Arrizabalaga, Spaniard and Chelsea goalkeeper, powered his penalty kick over the Liverpool goal, like a Russia missile homing in on long-distant targets in Ukraine!  That decided the match and handed Liverpool the Carabao Cup, the England League Cup trophy.

But those were early ominous signs.  Abramovich, rattled by threats and growls and dreadful sirens of sanctions and more sanctions, handed over the running of his profitable club to a foundation, of which he is chair.  He feared nationalization of the club, because of Putin’s outlaw behaviour over Ukraine.  What a price to pay, for just guilt by association!

But more woes were to come.  The sophistry of a foundation running a club in lieu of the owner just won’t do.  The owner is still chair of the  Chelsea FC Foundation!  Poor Roman — unlike the no-retreat-no-surrender Roman generals of old — surrendered. He just put Chelsea, his darling Chelsea, up for sale!  Now, proceeds from that sale would be donated to war victims in Ukraine!

Now, that is dovish and quite frankly noble.  But it’s no less an Abramovich push to distance himself from might-crazy Putin, who still suffers the delusion that in the 21st century, he would invade and squelch a neighbour and, with his country, nukes and all, live happily ever after!

You can’t but feel for the Russian oligarchs, the post-Soviet economic patricians, who made easy peace with Putin.  Those who didn’t have sour tales to tell.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Yukos magnate and once the richest man in all of Russia, now lives in London as an ex-convict.  In October 2003, Russia arrested him and charged him with fraud.  By 2005, he turned a jail bird — nine years!  While serving his term, he got slapped with another charge — embezzlement and money laundering — with business partner, Platon Lebedev.  He got released in 2014.

Alisher Usmanov, somewhat involved with Everton FC, is facing the heat too!  Germany has seized his US$ 600 million yacht.  Meanwhile, English Premiership rivals press Everton to throw Usmanov under the bus — just because of Putin’s madness.

The Russian oligarchs — no matter any alleged or perceived sharp practices — didn’t invade Ukraine.  Putin did.  Besides, contend with Putin, go to jail.  Make peace with him, pay dearly for his power gambits.  What double jeopardy!

Meanwhile, Russia and Belarus athletes have just been banned from the Beijing winter Paralympic Games — again, for the joint recklessness of Putin and Belarus President, Akexander Lukashenko.

Good riddance if the hunter turns the hunted.  But the haunted — Oligarchs and ordinary Russians suddenly turned global pariahs — are the worst victims.  Yet, they are the innocents here.  A stiff price to pay for Russia’s reckless war and imperial dreams!

In 2018, it was a trio: Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM), Olisa Agbakoba (SAN)-led Nigerian Intervention Movement (NIM) and Chief Olu Falae-chaired Social Democratic Party (SDP).

Now, in 2022, are The National Movement (TNM) and National Consultative Front (NCFront), of which Wale Okunniyi claimed a South West membership (The Nation, February 28).

The same report listed other likely “third force” partners, ahead of a formal launch in Abuja on March 8:  People’s Redemption Party (PRP: Nigeria’s current oldest party, founded by the late Mallam Aminu Kano, pre-Second Republic, 1979-1983), African Democratic Congress, National Rescue Movement (NRM) and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).

Now, is history repeating itself?  And Karl Marx-speak, would that be as tragedy or as farce?  Just run through the movements and parties prancing as “third force” — to displace the ruling APC and main opposition, PDP.

In 2018, Obasanjo anointed ADC as his “third force”, after decorating the party with the CNM medal — another sole Obasanjo “silverware”.  Both ADC and CNM made absolutely no impact.  So, what new tricks can ADC pull now that it didn’t pull in 2019?

Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).   Its forebear, Labour Party (LP), acquired notoriety for political whoredom.  Not long ago, LP was ready platform for any disgruntled candidate that got mauled in his or her party’s nomination sweepstakes.  Later, Olusegun Mimiko, who milked LP for his bruising triumph over the Ondo PDP, in his governorship years, formed ZLP from LP.

Cut a long story short: Mimiko has junked ZLP for PDP.  The “native” (?) has returned?  The native had to bear a question mark because Mimiko’s original party in 1999 was the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD)!  So, with LP/ZLP peripatetic record, its contribution to the new alliance would appear more of a third farce than a third force!

Now, x-ray the key personalities in this renewed excitement (again, quoting from The Nation report): Olisa Agbakoba, Attahiru Jega, Kingsley Moghalu, Pat Utomi, Wale Okunniyi and Usman Bugaje.

From the military-era Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) to NIM of 2018, Dr. Agbakoba has a chequered history of human and citizen rights crusading.  So did Prof. Pat Utomi, in quaint policy excitability, way back to the June 12, 1993 Concerned Professionals (CP) anti-annulment protests.  But both seem completely lost in real partisan politics, beyond heavy media exposure.

Dr. Usman Bugaje would appear one of those quiet but determined battlers.  He was there, when Action Congress (AC) transited to Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), which eventually dissolved into APC.  Prof. Jega, as campus unionist, vice-chancellor and INEC chair, had always been a gadfly, though on the quiet side.

Kingsley Moghalu and Wale Okuniyi?  Clear paperweights punching above their political weights.  Moghalu raced to a presidential contest.  It’s doubtful if he could have won a decent state house of assembly election.  Okunniyi is a veteran of many political escapades.  He too once vied for Senate, when he probably would labour to win a local government chairmanship.

The point?  These patriotic Nigerians have eminent rights to dream and aspire — and no one should pillory them for it.  Indeed, dare to dream: they should be hailed!

Yet, mouthing “third force” at the approach of every general election should go beyond mere dreams.  Political reach, reached from rigorous reality checks, is imperative.

Otherwise, their coveted third force will almost always end in third farce.  That is avoidable noise.

Ahead of his inauguration as Anambra State Governor on 18th March, Professor Chukwuma Soludo is sending out the vibes of a relentless visionary coming into governance. He has made cutting of waste and promotion of locally made products principal planks of his mission in power.

To the chagrin of many who may have projected the event as another opportunity to fleece the treasury, the former Central Bank Governor has insisted his swearing-in will be devoid of fanfare or ceremony and won’t cost a kobo of public resource. “I do not wish any event, dancers or players and all that. I just want to show up for work like every first workday. Though it is going to be a Friday, which is the weekend, I’m going to work for over eight hours that day,” he recently told members of his transition committee. He also pledged commitment to locally made products, so to promote indigenous enterprise. Among these are local fabrics known as Akwete, handwoven by women of Akwaete in Abia State, which he said he was adopting as a statement to rekindle consumer zeal for Nigerian products. So also has he pledged himself to using vehicles made by Innoson Motors, an Nnewi, Anambra State-based automaker, for his official pool as state governor. Last week, the incoming governor’s media handlers lengthened the inventory, saying he had resolved that only beers made in Anambra State and organic palm wine brewed in Awa/Awgbu axis will be the drinks served in Government House and at state functions under his governorship. “The list is long, as he will not wear any shoes that are not made in Anambra. Soludo is aware that most of these products may not be the best in their classes globally but is of the well-considered opinion that our patronage will help upscale their quality standards and make them competitive beyond our shores,” his media aide Joe Anatune stated in a promotional write-up.

It isn’t beyond contemplation that Soludo’s adoption of strictly made-in-Nigeria is more of political posturing than substance; but even mere posturing in the context is helpful because optics, as they say, is everything. The genuineness of his disposition will yet be measured by where he spends his vacations, where his children attend school if he yet has children of schooling age, where he subscribes to routine medical services and other services regarding which the power elite appears to have sworn an oath of avoidance on Nigeria. But he has nonetheless set an example worthy of emulation by the power class. The challenge, though, is not just to patronise made-in-Nigeria, but to also help in easing the supply factor so that so that ‘big men’ coming in to play will not suddenly take the items out of the reach of ordinary Nigerians who hitherto were consigned to that market segment for reasons of limited means.

In Zamfara, Mahadi Aliyu Gusau just got ousted as deputy governor.  But another Gusau, Hassan Nasiha, a sitting senator of the Federal Republic, just got put in his place.

Gusau out, Gusau in, you’d say.  So, what’s the big deal?  Good question!  It is the sheer barrenness, of the cheap pretence, of Nigeria’s power politics.

Some back-grounding would be apposite here.  None of all these power players — old PDP men now sworn APC neophytes — won any election.  Ironically, the only guy that tried live his true essence, Mahadi Aliyu Gusau, ended up sliced and served for cynical political dinner, for staying loyal to his original PDP platform.  Politics!

Both Bello Matawalle, the PDP Zamfara gubernatorial candidate and Gusau, his running mate, were sound losers in the 2019 governorship election.  But both were declared winners — no thanks to a court verdict that ruled that the ruling Zamfara APC, under outgoing Governor Abdul’aziz Yari, didn’t obey its own laws and processes in choosing the party’s candidates.  So, the court voided the votes of the winners.

Perhaps for the first time in Nigerian history — or of any democracy’s at that — comprehensive losers at all levels (governorship, National Assembly and state legislature) became stunning winners, with President Muhammadu Buhari’s win the only exception.

Fela would have called all of that “government magic”.  It certainly was some judicial magic!

But then, more drama!  PDP Governor Matawelle suddenly decreed himself APC.  He therefore moved the entire PDP judicial tally — governor, national and state legislators — into his new partisan heartthrob, APC.  Well, for PDP, it was snatching partisan defeat from the jaws judicial victory — and just as well!

When everyone runs amok, it could be fatal to stay sane.  That was  Mahadi Aliyu Gusau’s ultimate crime.  He balked and remained in PDP — honour suicide! — and just paid the supreme political price: impeachment!

Aminu Sani Jaji, an APC chieftain, just claimed the deputy governor was removed not because he refused to defect to APC but because of sundry political offences.  He can tell that to the marines!

As for Hassan Nasiha Gusau, the new deputy governor, how does anyone throw away a position as elected senator to embrace the whims and caprices of Nigerian governors, notorious for their general monarchical arrogance and hauteur?  But maybe it’s safer in a governor’s court than remaining a “court” senator, who won no election and therefore lacked any organic link to his senatorial constituency!

Ironically here too, the judiciary had a crucial role in the procedure, no matter how skewed.  Yes, the politicians do the dirty job of impeachment railroads — in a few days shuffling poor Gusau into his political grave, in a process that could have lasted no less than three months.

But the charter came from the judiciary, though by law, it has pretty little choice in the matter.  February 10: Zamfara legislature called for an investigation panel.  February 14: Chief Judge Kulu Aliyu obliged it with one, under the chair of Justice Haladu Tanko.  February 23 (after the February 22 release of panel’s recommendation): swift impeachment and political Golgotha for Mahadi Aliyu Gusau.

But who the bells tolls for here is not the “buried” Mahadi Gusau.  It is rather the harried and pilloried political party system.  Pray, how can you deepen democracy when you daily subvert and maul its soul, the political party system?

Since the scandal erupted recently over alleged involvement of suspended head of Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT), Deputy Commissioner of Police Abba Kyari, in drug dealings, no fewer than four of his alleged accomplices have come under the axe by police authorities pending the outcome of investigation into the allegations levelled against them. The Police Service Commission (PSC) early last week exercised its powers to suspend two senior officers, Assistant Commissioner of Police Sunday Ubua and Assistant Superintendent of Police James Bawa, and it requested Police Inspector-General Alkali Baba to suspend Inspector Simon Agrigba and Inspector John Nuhu in accordance with the powers of delegation. The PSC, in a statement, said it further requested the Inspector-General to inform it of the arrest of Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) John Umoru “who is currently at large whenever his arrest is effected to enable it take necessary action.” It added: “The Commission also directed the Inspector-General of Police to note also that DCP Abba Kyari, who prior to this allegation was on suspension, shall remain so until the conclusion of investigations.”

From the account given by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) about Kyari’s alleged drug involvement, however, it remains to be seen how much effect being on suspension has in keeping a police officer away from active duty. Kyari has been on suspension and placed under yet-to-be-concluded investigation by the Nigerian Police since United States authorities declared him wanted in July 2021 over his alleged role in a scam perpetrated by notorious fraudster Ramon Abbas, aka Hushpuppi, and five others. But the particular drug case over which he is indicted by the NDLEA reportedly began on 21st January, 2022 when DCP Kyari allegedly initiated a call to an NDLEA officer that his team had intercepted and arrested some traffickers who came into the country from Ethiopia with 25kg of cocaine and proposed a deal to purloin 15kg of the consignment, leaving 10kg for the prosecution of the suspects. When Kyari was eventually arrested by the police and handed over to the NDLEA, it was along with four members of his IRT team who are now on suspension.

So, if Kyari has been on suspension since 2021, how come he still had IRT operatives under his command to execute the alleged drug plot? He certainly couldn’t have done that as an officer on suspension, functioning from outside the purview of official police operations. Or does being on suspension from police work have a different meaning from what is generally understood by being on suspension? If being on suspension does not hamstrung an officer from actively operating, we must wait to see what effect the latest rash of suspensions will have on the affected personnel. With the Kyari saga, curious only gets curioser.

In two stories that The Nation published, one above the other on February 21, you could well sight the descent in the quality of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) campaigns, summarized by incessant strikes.

That, however, is without prejudice to some genuine complaints that ASUU might have, which the government has not solved.

In one of those stories, Prof. Is-haq Oloyede, registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB), backed ASUU on its rejection of the government’s Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), for its perceived inflexibility for academic work.

“I am not a fan of ASUU,” he told a gathering, “but they have a point here.  IPPIS is unsuitable for the university system.”  Proof?  Short-and-sharp: with IPPIS, it would have been impossible to recruit a Nigerian with PhD in Botany, that Oloyede sighted at Australia, when he was vice chancellor at the University of Ilorin (Unilorin).

Recall: Vice Chancellor Oloyede was no friend of ASUU.  As helmsman at Unilorin, he called ASUU’s bluff and kept his university from joining its incessant strikes.  But without emotions, he made his pro-ASUU point this time round and he sounds very credible.

Contrast Oloyede’s take to the visceral effusions of Prof. Ayo Akinwole, chairman of the University of Ibadan ASUU.  His was a flurry of demonization, personal attacks and sundry dons’ lamentation: the Federal Government lacks integrity; the government implements IMF destructive policies; the Education minister is insensate; the government treats lecturers as slaves; lecturers’ take-home pay is scandalous, and so on, and so forth!

Pray, even if these allegations are true, which audience does our angry don think he is addressing?  A band of Dugbe market women in Ibadan, easily moved my moans, lamentations and sundry theatrics?  Or hard-boiled fellows, only swayed by compelling logic, facts and figures?

If Prof. Akinwole’s presentation truly gauges the level of the quality of ASUU’s discourse, then it’s no surprise that what it hits on is strike and more strikes.  That is unfortunate.  To surmount the ASUU-Government challenges, strikes are clearly an unsustainable tool.

Hardball said this before and it bears repeating: the flower of Nigerian intellect, which ASUU should represent, should out with fresher thinking; and embrace a pragmatic culture of give-and-take.

It umpteenth resort to strikes is progressively making it less friends, even if it could have some justifiable causes.  The government too should strike implementable deals with ASUU, to build confidence on both sides.

It’s time to change grand strategies — on both sides — to save public tertiary education.  A word is enough for the wise.

As many as 2,203 child-soldiers have been disengaged from the ranks of the Borno State Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), which was created by the state government in 2013 to assist security forces in fighting against insurgency.

The CJTF commander, Malam Abati Isa, said in Maiduguri last Monday that his squad disengaged the child-soldiers in compliance with the United Nations Convention against the use of child-soldiers and had made great strides towards preventing further recruitment. Speaking at an event to mark this year’s International Day against the Use of Child-soldiers, he lauded the state Ministry of Justice and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for their roles in the efforts. Isa recalled that the CJTF was listed in the annexes to the UN Secretary-General’s Report on Children and Armed Conflict in April 2016 for child recruitment and use. “However, in September 2017, the Country Task Force on Monitoring and Reporting (CTFMR), in collaboration with UNICEF and other partners, signed an action plan with the CJTF to put an end to child recruitment and use. Following that, the CJTF, with the support of the CTFMR and the Borno State Ministry of Justice (MOJ), took significant steps to put an end to this practice. Significant progress has been made by the CJTF in implementing the action plan, including standing orders to all commanders and their sectors to stop recruiting children and the separation of 2,203 children (363 girls, 1,840 boys) from the group’s rank and file,” he said, adding that as a result, the CJTF has been delisted from the annexes of subsequent Secretary-General’s annual reports.

Among other speakers at the event was Borno Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Zuwaira Gambo, who said the state government had released and reintegrated children formerly linked with armed groups. She explained that the government with its partners had a programme to ensure children protection from exploitation and re-recruitment, saying: “To prevent the recruitment of child-soldiers and ensure their demobilisation and reintegration, birth registration is being promoted, especially among IDPs’ children who are being resettled in their ancestral homes. The government has also put in place a strategy to protect children formerly associated with armed groups from retribution, summary execution, arbitrary detention, torture and other punitive measures, following the Convention on the Rights of the Child and international juvenile justice standards.”

The gap may well be in the reportage of the event, but there didn’t seem much said about redeeming the disengaged child-soldiers beyond their being demobilized and shielded from re-recruitment or retribution. Children are highly impressionable and in their formative years, and must have imbibed aggressive habits from the insurgency war. Returning them to civil society without thoroughly re-orientating them could be like redirecting fireballs. The emphasis in government’s reintegration programme should be on defusing/neutralising the imbibed aggression, not just restricting them from further participation in warfare. That is where the safety of society lies.

The other day, Hardball was thinking aloud when the real apology, from Ikeja Electric (I.E.) would come, for its audacious bills, for the estimated billing segment of its customers?  The answer just came: never!  For sparse power supply in January, it just outed with its normal jumbo bills.

It all came to life from the latest bills the DisCo was sharing for January, the same month for which it had fulsomely apologized, for supplying below-par power.  In that month, power supplied totalled no more that six or eight hours daily.  Yet, the bill suggests violently otherwise.

In a bill it sent to Customer 0100218678, I.E. claimed “current charges” of N39, 459. 22.  It’s decreed payment was N43, 000, though it didn’t bother to explain why “estimated charges” fell behind “payment” by a few coins.

It also marked, as “previous balance”, N165, 374. 68 — voodoo bills it had ratcheted up in the past, but which long-suffering customer just paid a part of that he felt was fair.  It decreed its “due date” as 17 February 2022, by which time it would send its disconnection gang to harass and disconnect.

However, Customer 0200218678 decided to humour I.E. by paying its “payment”  in full: N43, 000 for near-concentrated darkness.  Yet see, even after payment, the text message I.E. sent him: “Dear customer, our record shows that as of today (that was February 17) — three clear days after the bill had been paid — you have outstanding bills yet to be paid.  We advise that you please settle all outstanding bills to avoid service disruption.”

But it added a final proviso: “Please disregard if full payments have been made. Thank you for allowing us to serve you” — more of scam you!

What does this text show?  The all-mighty I.E. has enough presence of mind to issue a bill warning.  But it lacks all gumption to pin-point its message to only those who deserve it.  What service-savvy business does that in the 21st century?

Indeed, it’s a huge scandal that a private company would rip its customers off, month in, month out, without remedy from the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), the industry regulator.

Since impunity fast grows into something much uglier, I.’E’s attitude, from its often rude and care-free communications, is that it doesn’t care a hoot about the service it provides.  It only cares for revenue, however creamed, by hook or by crook.

That can’t be a sustainable business model.  In this case, its estimated billing customer segment can’t be a rogue el-dorado for service not supplied.  It can’t be a growth area to make up for revenue not earned from customers fitted with prepaid meters.

NERC should call I.E. and other DisCos to order.  A word is enough for the wise.