Category: Hardball

Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai must think that his latest idea on how the country can tackle banditry makes a lot of sense. “Government can change the game significantly by hiring 1,000 willing youths from each of the 774 local government areas of the country into the various security agencies. This will be unprecedented since the civil war,” he said.

The governor added: “An influx or addition of 774,000 new boots on the ground in various security agencies will be a significant blow against criminals and an employment creating opportunity.”

El-Rufai unveiled his idea after receiving the third quarter security report from Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs Samuel Aruwan in Kaduna on October 20. The commissioner had said bandits killed about 343 people, abducted 830 and injured 210 in the state within the third quarter of the year. The victims included women and minors.

The governor observed that “There are simply not enough boots on the ground to have credible deployment to most places, deter crime and restore order.” This explains his new idea about recruiting more fighters against banditry.  Kaduna State has “about 900 trained and vetted vigilantes working with the security agencies,” he said, adding that “Many state governments in the North-West and North-Central have adopted a non-conventional approach to help the security agencies to better protect our communities.”

It is indeed an unconventional approach, but it’s unclear if the approach has resulted in safer communities in the affected areas. That’s putting it mildly. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that it’s doubtful if the approach has worked.

The point is that there can be no real substitute for having formal security personnel fighting against banditry. The use of ad hoc fighters, which is what the so-called non-conventional approach is all about, is ultimately a sign of incapacity.

El-Rufai’s suggestion that the authorities should boost the capacity of the security agencies by recruiting 1,000 youths from each of the 774 local government areas of the country is easier said than done. Can the Federal Government employ 774,000 new security personnel now? It is noteworthy that the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) 2021/2022 recruitment, for example, is for only 10,000 constables across the 36 states.

There is an important sense in which El-Rufai’s proposal has to do with Nigeria’s brand of federalism which does not allow states to have their own security personnel. Imagine if the states had their own police, for instance. That would have security implications as well as employment implications, which El-Rufai mentioned as advantages of his proposal. Reviewing the country’s federalism is long overdue.

Although we run a democracy, it is sometimes funny when a democratic idea sends some so-called democrats into a frenzy of denial. It even makes them into advocates of despotism. The bill spearheaded by Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila about promoting open primaries in our elections has understandably robbed some monarchs of democracy the wrong way.

The whole purpose is to ensure that the rank and file decide who represent them, and not those in high ranks who order their party members to file like herds behind an anointed fellow.

One of those who has spoken against the bill is the loquacious governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, who has said it is meddlesome for the people’s representatives to decide how their parties should pick their representatives, including the lawmakers.

This is what the governor said: “A party could adopt a method, procedure in electing who represent them at various level, that is not the for the National Assembly to dictate that you must do it by direct or indirect method. That is not democracy. That should be an internal affair of the party…The National Assembly should realise that doing that is interfering in the internal politics of the parties and that will not augur well.”

Wike would say that because he is a governor, and men like him see their positions as licence to tyranny rather than opportunity to affirm the people’s will. Some governors love his line, although they have not come out to say so. Hardball witnessed in the last dispensation, especially in the APC, when some governors rallied against the open primary procedure because they thought they would lose hold of the process.

Democracy is the government by the people, of the people and for the people. But what Abraham Lincoln said then has applied universally. Yet because of the human penchant to control rather cede to the popular conscience, we have seen some persons try to manipulate the process and leave the people frustrated and in the lurch.

What the open primary does is guarantee that who the people want will win. It will ensure that the mass of the people will be eager to participate because they feel they are not just pawn in a big man’s game. It reduces the power of financial inducement, and ensures that votes are counted and not weighed. British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli and his fellow conservatives were afraid of the masses and insisted that votes should not count.

But that is a subversive democracy, the democracy of the powerful and not of the people. In a country like ours, where votes are upset by thugs, it is easy to reassemble the people and do the vote again.

When a person enters by open primary he will govern openly, and always remember that he can lose the same way he won. The people will set their sights on them, and wait for them at the party floor.

So, Wike and company should not fear. It is not the people we should fear. The lawmakers like the speaker who propound that idea also know that they have a reckoning with the people. That is a good thing for all. Those who don’t want it may not be modern democrats but primates of politics. Primaries are primarily modern and hold the key to the future.

The news report that the Ebonyi Ebubeagu corps shot and killed four, injured many others, all of them Ebonyi citizens, must worry everyone.

If regional security outfits are being pushed for state police, shouldn’t everyone be bothered by stories that suggest they too might be getting itchy-fingered, as the high-handed present central police?

The details of the case are the umpteenth penchant, by the so-called “youths” to blunder into self-help, in pushing whatever cause they feel is right.  Some young folks had sealed off a Lebanese-owned quarry company, Conrock, based in Amasiri, in Afikpo North local government area of Ebonyi State.

That was unfortunate.  In a country of law, no medley group has a right to seal off a business precinct.  Even organized unions that enjoy such privileges, under Labour laws, exercise them after laid out processes.

Even then, the siege had been lifted; and the youths were sharing the “loot” of their siege — monetary gift from the Conrock management (another unfortunate extortion) — when the Ebonyi Ebubeagu corps reportedly arrived, in five Toyota Sienna cars (according to The Nation report of October 18), and opened fire on the gathering, in Amaebor, Ohaechara village square.

More worrisome: Ebubeagu was alleged to have forcefully transferred some of the injured from a hospital in Afikpo, to another one in Abakaliki, the state capital.  What if the injured had suffered terrible reverses?

Let’s get it straight: those fellows have absolutely no right to seal off a business premises, talk less of extorting money, from managers under pressure — no matter the level of provocation to the host community.  The right thing was to report whatever the grievances to the relevant state authorities.

Even then, should the penalty for that misdemeanor be free-wheeling strafing of those involved, in an open community square?  Even if those folks were clearly culpable, have they been found guilty by a court?  And was the verdict open execution?

Besides under the law, does Ebubeagu have the right to bear arms — arms lethal enough to summarily despatch fellow citizens?  So, is the security outfit now morphing into an execution gang, even before it finds its full bearing under the law?

Stories like these de-market the legitimate and over-due call for state police; and arm ultra-central elements to keep the present un-federalised police structure.

That is why the government of Ebonyi State must probe this unfortunate incident and bring those involved in the killings to an open trial.  Ebubeagu — just like Amotekun and other regional security outfits — can’t afford to recreate the excesses of the central police we all complain about.

That would amount to slain dreams and buried hopes, for better security, at the sun-national level.

It’s a grand name that has produced not-so-grand results. Zonal Intervention Projects (ZIP), another name for constituency projects of National Assembly members, will get N100bn, according to the latest budget proposal.

Money for ZIP is meant to be used for intervention projects in all constituencies across the country. Constituency projects are supposed to develop the constituencies, and include provision of water, rural electrification, rural clinics, schools, community centres and bursary for indigent students.  The federal lawmakers usually nominate the contractors, and the projects are usually executed by the Federal Government.

‘‘It is on record that in the past 10 years N1tn has been appropriated for constituency projects, yet the impact of such huge spending on the lives and welfare of ordinary Nigerians can hardly be seen,” President Muhammadu Buhari observed at the National Summit on Diminishing Corruption in Public Sector in November 2019.

A damning report by the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) said: “The level of implementation of constituency projects in 16 focus states for 2015 is revealing. Out of 436 constituency projects for the year that were tracked, 145 were completed, 77 ongoing while 211 were not executed at all.

“For 2016, out of a total of 852 constituency projects in 20 states in the 2016 Budget that were tracked, 350 were completed, 118 were ongoing, 41 locations not specified in the budget and 343 not done or performed.”

Also, according to the report, “In 2017, a total of 1,228 constituency projects in the budget were tracked for performance as at June 2018. Out of these, 478 were completed, 173 in an unspecified location, 200 ongoing, 13 abandoned and 364 not started. The level of performance of constituency projects is therefore disputable.”

Despite the findings, it is puzzling that the Federal Government has continued to provide funds for constituency projects. When constituents don’t benefit from constituency projects, who benefits?  Ironically, the beneficiaries of constituency projects are usually not constituents, but corrupt federal legislators and their associates.

Observers say money for constituency projects is included in the budget to facilitate the passage of the budget. They say if there is no money for constituency projects in the budget, the lawmakers will not approve any other thing in the budget.

So the game of give and take continues. The people are shortchanged. The country remains underdeveloped. It is disturbing. Sadly, there is no sign that this yearly ritual is about to end.

More Nigerians are responding to the call to take Covid-19 vaccination towards promoting herd immunity against the deadly virus. But there are indications the process emplaced  by government for the vaccination is chaotic and could turn off citizens tentatively yielding to the clamour to get vaccinated. Of course, it might not be the case in many other vaccination centres nationwide, but there are places where the process is downright shoddy. The experience of this Hardball writer at the Iju Primary Healthcare Centre in Agege, Lagos was nightmarish.

The first point of challenge was the utter disalignment between the mandatory online pre-registration on the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) portal by anyone seeking to get the jab and what transpires on site at the vaccination centre. The registration portal touts the luxury of you being able to chose a convenient date, and whether you prefer the morning or afternoon session – information items, among others, that are documented before you are sent a notification of your vaccination number. But the date and session you choose may be wholly unworkable at the vaccination centre, and all you get is a dismissive reminder that online stuff bears no relevance to what transpires on ground. This writer made repeated visits four times before being able to get the first jab. The first time, duly scheduled online, fell on the Independence holiday that was ordinarily convenient and one had assumed health facilities work all round, only to encounter skeletal staff at the centre who pointed out irritatingly it was a public holiday. The second time was the following Monday, when unfriendly centre staff brusquely announced there were no doses left for the first jab – forget that the online portal scheduled you for one. You asked for a contact phone number through which you could check when fresh supplies are available, and they gave the number of the LGA DSNO, who never picked his/her phone despite repeated calls. After getting information through other channels that fresh supply was now available, you made a third visit at about 12.30p.m., having registered online for the afternoon slot, only to find that staffers administering the first jab had closed for the day because the centre does not run the afternoon shift.

The fourth visit on which this writer eventually succeeded in getting the jab was even more grueling. Health centre staffers not involved in the vaccination had advised that one should come in between 7a.m. and 8a.m., just so to pick an early number on the queue. That, of course, meant leaving home before dawn to wade through the rush-hour traffic. But then, vaccination officials did not open shop until after 10a.m. despite the crowd already gathered, and even with some of them having arrived at work much earlier but without attending to vaccination duties. By the time they eventually started administering the vaccination process, there was desperation built up, which they exploited in giving preferential attention to acquittances or emergency ‘clients.’

For a vaccine that many Nigerians are yet to be convinced to take, the process cramps are a further disincentive.

Proscribed separatist group Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) continues to seek relevance. But seeking relevance does not make it relevant. The group’s latest move is yet another demonstration of its hunger and thirst for relevance. This time, IPOB wants to regulate cattle business and cow meat consumption in the Southeast.

A statement by the group’s Head of Directorate of State (DOS), Mazi Chika Edoziem, banned the rearing and consumption of “Fulani cows” in the Southeast states, saying that the ban would take full effect six months after the announcement.

According to him, “from that date no more Fulani cows shall be allowed into Biafra land for any reason, not for burials, title taking, weddings, etc.”  He added that only cows bred in the territory would from that time on “be consumed and used for all ceremonies in Biafra land.”

This is a new high in the group’s quest for relevance. It is also a new low in its desperation for control of what it calls “Biafra land.” The Southeast geopolitical zone, which IPOB seeks to control, is made up of five states: Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo states.

The group’s ban on “Fulani cows” is nothing but an opportunistic move in the context of farmer-herder conflicts in the region.  IPOB is merely taking advantage of the conflicts between Igbo farmers and Fulani herders to launch this self-serving operation.

It is unclear how the group intends to enforce this ban in the five states. It already has a bad record when it comes to enforcing its bad ideas. In September, for instance, enforcers of IPOB’s sit-at-home order disrupted the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in many parts of the Southeast.  Many secondary school students who were writing the school leaving exam were affected. The disruption of the examination was condemnable.

This disruption happened despite the fact that IPOB had reviewed its sit-at-home order , saying that the so-called Ghost Monday would no longer be every Monday but only when its detained leader ,Nnamdi Kanu, makes a court appearance.  IPOB has no business issuing sit-at-home orders in the first place. It is operating unlawfully.

In another instance of IPOB’s lawlessness, it had launched the Eastern Security Network (ESN), which it described as “a vigilance group, established to protect Biafrans against terrorists.” It declared that “any other group parading as a South-East and South-South security outfit will not be allowed to operate on Biafra soil.”  Obviously, since it is not a recognised group, its security outfit cannot be a recognised organisation.

The group’s move to regulate cattle business and cow meat consumption in the Southeast is yet another expression of its lawlessness. But it cannot achieve relevance through lawlessness.