Category: Hardball

Hardball

Shocking news! Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa was reported saying he has been receiving death threats because of his work, specifically his agency’s fight against corruption.

He was quoted as saying on Sunrise Daily, a programme on Channels Television: “Last week, I was in New York, as all Nigerians are aware of. A very senior citizen received a phone call from somebody that is not even under investigation.

“What he (the caller) said to him on phone is that; he is going to kill the EFCC chairman, the young man. He said, ‘I am going to kill him. I am going to kill him.’ This is to tell you how bad it is. It is actually real. Corruption can fight back.”

It is unclear what Bawa is doing about the threat or even whether he is doing anything about it. It is a serious matter, particularly because of the mention of murder.

This death threat raises several questions.  Who is the “very senior citizen” in the narrative? Who is the caller that threatened to kill Bawa?  Why did the caller issue such a threat? Is he a possible person of interest to the EFCC? Is he afraid that the agency would eventually focus on him?  Did he expect that Bawa would get to know about his threat?  What did he think Bawa might do, or not do, about the threat?  Why did the caller sound so desperate?  There are other possible questions.

The EFCC boss had introduced the narrative to show that “corruption can fight back.” It is no news that corruption can hit back. Indeed, it is expected that corruption would try to hit back.

The point is: What is to be done when there are signs that corruption is planning to fight back, or is fighting back? Passivity shouldn’t be the response in such circumstances.

A death threat, such as the one issued by the caller in the narrative, should be met with prompt and decisive action. Has the EFCC boss told law enforcement authorities about it?

Bawa shouldn’t just talk about death threats; he should do something about them. He shouldn’t just tell the public about death threats he received; he should say what he has done about them, or what he plans to do. Or does he think such threats are unserious? He should take them seriously.

Hardball

Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde last Saturday joined June 12 protesters on Ibadan highways in what was, when you distill it, a balancing act between positive optics and negative substance.

Protesters had hit the streets of major cities nationwide for Democracy Day demonstration against the current situation in Nigeria, including acute insecurity and poor economy that they considered to have resulted from bad governance. In Ibadan, the Oyo capital, the demonstrators reportedly marched from Mokola at the city centre towards Sango en route Ojoo suburb. They carried posters, placards and banners with different inscriptions conveying their displeasure over the situation of the country. A video clip that went viral on social media, however, showed the Oyo governor at Bodija area of the capital city addressing the protesters, who cheered him for ostensibly identifying with them. It was reported that he commended those protesters for their peaceful conduct, acknowledging it was their right to call government to question when things were not done right.

It must be conceded to Mr. Governor that it was smart of him to seize the grandstand by identifying with the protesters, thereby projecting himself as a man of the people. It was crassly opportunistic but nonetheless politically sagacious, posting good optics that is helpful for any power actor. For a minute, you would think he was one of those beefing against government as the protesters hailed him as a friend. But perceptive analysis would expose a contradiction between the momentary sentiment of the protesters and the substance of their protest. Because if the anger was against the challenge of bad governance, that challenge is a class action for which all members of the ruling elite bear joint responsibility. The Oyo governor is a leading member of that elite and is partly liable for what the protest was directed at. In effect, he ought to have apologised on behalf of the ruling class rather than grandstand in solidarity with demonstrators.

Just so to be clear, this wasn’t exactly the same as when Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu joined #EndSARS protesters in October 2020 against police brutality. The Lagos helmsman had identified with the #EndSARS protesters while addressing them at the state secretariat in Alausa, Ikeja, carried the #Stoppolicebrutality placard and walked with the protesters to demand an end to frequent harassment of citizens by men of the police force. In that instance, the outrage was against a group, of which Sanwo-Olu isn’t a member and could thus reasonably posture sympathy with protesters. As for the Democracy Day protests, anger was against alleged bad governance by the ruling class of which the Oyo governor is a bona fide member. Hence, he should have apologised rather than egg on the protesters.

Hardball

Just as well Twitter is temporarily off.  It would have staged the maniacal roasting of the latest “Satan” in town, on the irreverent altar of social media, simply because hated-filled citizens disagree with his views!  Still, expect some paroxysm, on the matter, on Facebook and allied social media.

Chris Ngige, Labour and Employment minister, was, to use that popular lingo, vigorously “shaking the table”, against his co-Igbo elite, who he accused of deploying hate to poison the minds of the unwary.  He warned: a campaign powered by hate is counter-productive.

Though Ngige referenced fellow Ndigbo, that message is true of every elite nationwide — for many, if not most, seem to have embraced hatred and cheep passion, when facts and figures should have better anchored their message.  It’s as Ngige said: at best, such rabid techniques are ignorant; at worst, they are mischievous.  Either way, the common wealth is the loser.

On President Muhammadu Buhari’s “hatred” for the Igbo, Ngige countered such couldn’t be logically anchored.  For starters, he says the Igbo enjoy an additional minister, above their due, in comparison to other geo-political zones, in the Federal Executive Council (FEC).  Yeah: you could taunt, ad hominem: Ngige is taking rubbish, he’s too close to the government!  Maybe.  But that doesn’t vitiate the facts he stated.

On the present government’s legacy federal projects, Ngige insists the Igbo got their fair share: the 2nd Niger Bridge (South East), which he named alongside Lagos-Ibadan expressway (South West), Mambilla agricultural/electricity project (North East), East-West Road (South East-South-South), Abuja-Kaduna-Kano road (North West).

On general infrastructure, including aviation, Ngige points at on-going road works — Owerri-Aba, Enugu-Awka-Onitsha, Owerri-Umuahia — aside from the uplift of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu.

“We had three Aviation ministers — Fidelia Njeze, Stella Oduah and Osita Chidoka,” Ngige recalled, appointees of past administrations that ‘loved’ the Igbo, but “they did nothing there.  Buhari put N10billion in Enugu Airport.  He does not hate Ndigbo.”

On Igbo clamour for security and other “juicy” appointments, Ngige told co-elite not to forget in a hurry.  Time was when Ogbonnaya Onovo and Mike Okiro were IGP, almost back-to-back.  Anyim Pius Anyim was secretary to the government of the federation, aside from his stint as Senate President.

“We had four Senate presidents,” Ngige recalled of a near-hegemonic era. “Twice we produced Deputy Senate President and Deputy Speaker, Ike Ekweremadu and Emeka Ihedioha.  They were in charge of federal budgets for eight years from 2007 to 2015.”

Do all these then mean the Buhari government has been excellent with the Igbo and that they have absolutely no cause to grumble?  No.  But if they must, it should not be on the basis of presumed hatred.  That can’t be supported: not by present facts; not by recent history.

But the Ngige charge is true of the Igbo as it is of the Sunday Igboho school of push-me-I-slap-you Yoruba activism.  Always marshal facts to back your demand.  Hate and explosive passion is equal-opportunity mess: it would first mess up your head (though initially making you feel good) and mess up your cause (eventually making you out as a joke!).

Hardball

Nigeria’s Democracy Day on June 12 was an opportunity for President Muhammadu Buhari to highlight his administration’s achievements. He did so in an address to the nation.

It was striking that he delivered his speech in an atmosphere marred by widespread fear of violent public protests about the state of the nation, particularly mounting insecurity and difficult socio-economic conditions.

Predictably, he spoke about the challenges. “When you elected me as your President in 2015, you did so knowing that I will put an end to the growing insecurity, especially the insurgency in the North East, but the unintended consequences of our scattering them in the North East pushed them further in-country which is what we are now facing and dealing with,” he said.

The government’s failure to end the security crisis is a major minus. Terrorism, banditry and kidnapping for ransom are so familiar today, and it is not pessimistic to think the government is incapable of dealing with them.

President Buhari objectively identified “the twin underlying drivers of insecurity namely poverty and youth unemployment.”  But it isn’t enough to know. The question is: What has the administration done about what it knows?

He mentioned his  “vision of pulling 100 million poor Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years,” boasting that his administration’s  National Social Investment Programme is  “a first in Africa and one of the largest in the world where over 32.6m beneficiaries are taking part.” He added: “In the last two years we lifted 10.5 million people out of poverty – farmers, small-scale traders, artisans, market women and the like.”

It is unclear how he arrived at the number of those allegedly lifted out of poverty. Indeed, there is a need to clarify what it means to lift people out of poverty, and how the elevation can be ascertained.

“I will be the first to admit that in spite of our efforts and achievements which are there for all to see, there is still much more to be done,” he said.  Of course, the administration’s work is unfinished. But admitting that there is still much more to be done is not the same as doing much more, or doing what needs to be done.

With two years left of his second four-year term, President Buhari should be thinking about his legacy. He doesn’t have much time left to ensure that the ovation is louder when he leaves the stage than it was when he climbed it.

Hardball

Within a span of less than two months, there have been different indications of the prospects and potentials of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), a para-military scheme by which Nigerian tertiary graduates below 30 years of age are mobilised for mandatory one-year service to motherland.

In the third week of May, a House of Representatives member, Awaji Abiante from Rivers State, sponsored a bill to dump the scheme, which reached second reading in that legislative chamber. Abiante proposed the bill to amend Section 315 (1)(a) of the 1999 Constitution, arguing that the NYSC need be scrapped because it has failed to address its founding objectives and given heightened insecurity nationwide that endangers its members, who by rule serve outside of geopolitical zones of their nativity. Reacting to that bill, the Federal Government said it had no intention to scrap the 48-year-old scheme but rather was pursuing its reform. Youth and Sports Development Minister Sunday Dare said the NYSC remained a great tool of national development for Nigerian youth, and the Muhammadu Buhari administration was determined to retain it though “dynamic reforms and initiatives towards current realities are ongoing.”

A bigger alarm about the scheme was lately triggered by a comment from NYSC Director-General Brigadier-Gen. Shuaibu Ibrahim that corps members are part of the national defence policy and could be mobilised for war if the need arises. “Corps members are on reserve. They are part of the national defence policy of this country. So, where there is serious war, our corps members are educated, they are knowledgeable and they can be trained,” the NYSC boss said on a Channels TV 3rd June, adding: “If not for the knowledge, where are you going to mobilise such young Nigerians to train them quickly to put in their best for the country?” He further argued that the scheme had become more important than ever in the face of mounting calls for secession in Nigeria.

With that comment generating intense public concern, the NYSC rushed back last Friday to deny that corps members were being mobilised for war. A statement by the scheme’s spokesperson said the comment by the NYSC Director-General had been misrepresented, and that he had only said in line with the national defence policy, corps members are like soldiers on reserve because their education, exposure and sophistication could make them easily adaptable to military training. “General Ibrahim never at any point said that corps members are being mobilised to fight war. The scheme shall continue to safeguard the interest of corps members at all times,” the statement added.

You would be tempted to ask whether that follow-up statement compared with the D-G’s comment was mere semantics or substance. Whichever it is, the NYSC presently is civic conscription, and it must under no circumstance be converted to military conscription without citizens’ conscious buy-in. The scheme should not be scrapped, but neither should corps members ever become war fodder. Hardball has spoken!

Hardball

Out of the Twitter ban-powered threats of apocalypse, it is refreshing some good news still make it through the din.

Sadiya Farouq, the Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development minister, just announced a re-boosted National Home-Grown School Feeding programme, disclosing “9, 196, 823 pupils, in classes 1 to 3 in public primary schools will receive one nutritious meal daily in all 54, 619 schools nationwide”, as The Nation put it, in its news report of June 9.

Of course, such reports won’t “trend” or “go viral” — to borrow the lingo of Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools.  For once, the elite are not done fighting own battles, zealously pushed as “public interest”.  It’s good to have a voice.  But even these blokes should be concerned about how they use — more like misuse — their voices.

For another, 9, 196, 823 pupils, in 54, 619 public primary schools nationwide, is the demographic bastion of the dirt poor.  In these schools are no children of the filthy rich, policy makers, grandstanding legislators or even the posturing media: an industry which many — if not most — times fails its workers in the most basic human right of salary — receiving fair pay for fair work done — and yet works itself into a lather, campaigning for “human rights” outside its doors!  Brave souls!

By this curious demographics, therefore, the plight or welfare of the children of the dirt poor is, to the most informed and influencial band of the citizenry, an object to be pointed at, either with scorn or with pity.  They are simply not involved!  Which is why such stories seldom make front page news.  Crisis, conflicts, scandals and empty controversies are the preferred grist.

Still, government must go on.  And power, government’s enabler — “power is responsibility”,  Rauf Aregbesola, Interior Minister, always insists —  must be responsibly put into use.

Indeed, governance must be pretty lonely business, with its many cacophony of distractions and controversies.  Yet, that piece of news must warm the minister’s heart: school feeding, on this massive scale, all started under his governorship at Osun, before it snowballed into a federal developmental agenda.

Nevertheless, the good news of free food at school, for children of the most vulnerable, loudly crashes against the peril of the children of the most vulnerable at school, given the menace of bandits and kidnappers targeting schools.

It’s a classic food versus gun clash!  The question is who wins in the long run?

Food as magnet to schooling is a wonderful idea.  The food would be produced by local farmers, whose livelihood — and eventual prosperity — is guaranteed.  In the government buying their produce to feed their children in school, the future of these farmers and families are also secure.

But the bad news is that insecurity, with a single volley of the gun, puts paid to both beauties.  With prowling guns at firms, less farmers brace the danger of farming.  With prowling guns in schools, less and less of those children, whose future the government wants to secure, will progressively skip school, out of legitimate fears for dear lives.

Which is why the Federal Government can’t pull off the schools feeding programme without guaranteeing corresponding security.  But that is a challenge it must add to the mix.

The schools feeding programme is too core a development initiative to fail — and not even insecurity should be in its way.

Hardball

Leadership ideally is hands-on, and a good leader is expected to personally hold the fort in times of crisis. That is what is meant, obviously, by the popular saying about leading from the front. Not that leadership never works by delegation or remote guidance, but that isn’t what you would expect in situations requiring personal responsibility and precision of judgment in crisis management. Absentee leadership has its day, but certainly not in times of emergency.

Niger State Governor Abubakar Sani Bello seems to have a different view of leadership. Few hours after the abduction of nearly 200 children in an Islamic school in Tegina, Rafi council area of Niger, the governor travelled out of the country reportedly in search of possibilities for strengthening the state’s security architecture. It would have made no difference had he travelled out on vacation, though, because reports said he was accompanied by his wife and there is no set date for his return other than it would be “within the shortest period.”

A statement by the governor’s spokesperson strained to make clear he remained in charge of state affairs and would be remote-guiding governance. It said the governor had issued directives to security operatives and government officials to ensure rescue and safe return of the abducted Islamiyya children and others held by kidnappers, and assured people of the state that “government will continue to do all it can to protect the lives and property of its citizens while guaranteeing continuing peace and stability of the state.” Noting that Mr. Governor had directed that a situation room be activated to update the public on developments, the statement added: “While assuring parents of the abducted children of their safe return as security agencies had been directed to do all they can to bring (them) back as soon as possible, the governor urged citizens to cooperate and share information that would help in the quick rescue of the children.”

Meanwhile, since the governor left town, kidnappers of the Tegina Islamiyya students have demanded N110million ransom for the children – a demand that has been referred to the state government. After chairing a security meeting last week, Deputy Governor Ahmed Mohammed Ketso said government would not pay ransom for abductees but would rather negotiate with the abductors to secure the hostages’ release. In other incidents, no fewer than 15 persons including a riot policeman were killed and a police station razed when bandits attacked Beri and Kasanga in Mariga council area of Niger. Four persons abducted in Batati community, Lavun council area penultimate Friday regained their freedom following Sunday night only after families reportedly paid N5.5million ransom.

For a state so insecurity-prone as Niger, it shocks that Mr. Governor considered it a greater priority to travel out for whatever reason rather than be on hand to manage the crisis of the siege of bandits. Actually, it sucks!

Hardball

“Nigeria is a failed state,” roared the headline of a piece in Foreign Policy, by Robert I. Rotberg, of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Programme on Inter-state Conflict and John Campbell, a former US ambassador to Nigeria — two international scholars, sworn to rigour but dispensing alarm; devoted to peace but crowing war.

To be sure, beyond feasting on Nigeria’s present insecurity challenges, and making hurried doomsday projections, there wasn’t much to the piece.

Indeed, perhaps shocked by the audacity of own mad rush to a controversial conclusion, the duo hedged on some indices, to justify their technicality of doom — collapsed, weak and failed states: all products of some Western scholars’ prejudice, wrapped in pseudo-scholastic rigour.

To be sure, such classifications have their uses: to “meter” peril; and warn reckless state and non-state players to change tack, before shoving their countries over avoidable precipice.

Still, all too often, such “gauges” collapse into shrill alarms, driven by racial humbug.  But the problem is the local media often flash such reports as gospel and get all excitable over them, because they validate own biases and dark wishes.

Still, compare and contrast the Rotberg-Campbell dream of “failed” Nigeria, with the World Health Organization’s hailing of Nigeria’s COVID-19 vaccines rollout and administration, as Africa’s best.

“Nigeria is among the countries that are distributing the most COVID-19 vaccines as we speak,” gushed Dr. Kazadi Mulombo, the WHO Nigeria country representative.  “In Africa, we are witnessing a kind of paradox.  While … the continent has received less of its share … a number of African countries … are losing the vaccines because they expired before they could be used.”

Non-failed co-continental powers, Egypt (to the North) and South Africa (to the South), can’t be among these African infrastructure minnows.  Yet, only a “failed” Nigeria, by the Rotberg-Campbell prism, achieved the WHO feat!  Talk of condescension that works towards cherished answers!

Such doomsday alarms aren’t really new.  Around 2000, an account by Karl Maier projected “This House Has Fallen”, rapturously lapped up by Nigerians, socialized into believing the worst about themselves, by finger-pointing aliens.

Still, no sweat from Hardball; just bemusement.  Old braggart and ace liar, Donald Trump, is spreading fresh lies he would be reinstated US president by August, sending his zombie-like Republican followers into fresh frenzy!

Why, the vortex of the White lunatic fringe is even crowing their love for a Myamar-like military coup in America — after Trump’s January 6 millennial assault on the Capitol, the bastion of America’s two century-plus democracy!  Besides, there are wanton killings, on epidemic scale, in America’s cities, by lunatic gun men.

By America’s high standards, shouldn’t some “international” scholars, from Africa and from China, be projecting dark Freudian slips, pointing at America as a putative state failure?

A-ha!  Every country has its high-and-low in the long continuum of evolving.  Enough of all these pseudo-scholastic analyses of doom!

Hardball

When the authorities arrested 400 alleged Boko Haram sponsors in April, the move suggested a new level of seriousness in the fight against terrorism. The alleged financiers of the terrorist group were businessmen, including bureau de change operators. They were arrested in Kano, Borno, Abuja, Lagos, Sokoto, Adamawa, Kaduna and Zamfara.

The arrests were believed to have been carried out after investigations. The suspects were, therefore, expected to be prosecuted without delay. The Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations to the Attorney-General of the Federation, Dr Umar Gwandu, was reported saying the prosecution of the suspects “will commence as quickly as possible.”

But the suspects have not been arraigned. It is puzzling that the Federal Government is apparently delaying their trial. Gwandu was quoted as saying the process to prosecute them was still ongoing. “Journalists will be notified at an appropriate time,” he said.

It is unclear when the said process would be completed, and the suspects arraigned. Also, it is unclear why the process has not been completed. If investigations had implicated the arrested suspects, there should be no difficulty in putting them on trial. The longer it takes to arraign them, the greater the public feeling that the government is not quite ready to deal with alleged sponsors of terrorism.

The narrative that the country’s security crisis is fuelled by politicians, government officials and businessmen, continues to be spread by those who blame saboteurs for insecurity. For instance, Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom and Imo State Governor Hope Uzodinma recently attracted attention by circulating the allegation that saboteurs are to blame.

Ortom of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the main opposition party, had described kidnapping for ransom as “another lucrative business in Nigeria with strong suspicion of connivance with government officials.” Uzodinma of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the ruling party, told journalists that politicians were funding banditry to sabotage the Buhari administration.

The arrest of 400 alleged Boko Haram sponsors is an opportunity for the government to show that saboteurs exist and they are not faceless. This is why their prosecution should not be further delayed. Their trial will also encourage public confidence in the government’s effort to tackle insecurity.

The Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), should note that it is important to put the suspects on trial without further delay in order to establish the truth.  It is not enough that they are awaiting trial.  His aide spoke about “an appropriate time” for their trial. That time is now.