The Nation Newspaper

Tag: commotion

  • Commotion at Cross River APC secretariat as Minister is suspended indefinitely

    Commotion at Cross River APC secretariat as Minister is suspended indefinitely

    The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Pastor Usani Usani, was yesterday indefinitely suspended by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Cross River State.

    The party also recommended his expulsion to the national leadership of the party.  Acting chairman of the party, Sir John Ochala, who was in the company of the South South Vice Chairman, Ntufam Hilliard Eta, was to convey the development to reporters at the party’s secretariat but some aggrieved members disrupted the meeting.

    They ordered reporters out of the building.

    The aggrieved members were angry that many of them who sacrificed for the party have not been taken care of.

    Some of them broke some chairs and threatened to break the camera of one of the private national television stations.

    Usani, a former chairman of the party in the state, was accused of indiscipline.

    Ochala, addressing reporters later at a separate location in Calabar, said they had the powers to suspend the Minister but could not expel him, warranting the recommendation to the national leadership.

    He alleged Usani was into organising illegal meetings against the best interest of the party even after several efforts to reconcile their differences.

    He alleged the minister’s aim was to install a state chairman to do his bidding.

    “We had an emergency meeting which had to do with in discipline among some other issues within the party.

    “Majorly, what we took in the meeting had to do with the formation of caucuses across the state and also the issue of indiscipline which is fueled by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs.

    “With the powers vested on the state working committee, we had no choice but to invoke the tenets of the constitution which is the suspension of the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs and recommend his expulsion to the national,” he said.

     

  • P-D-P … commotion!

    During its halcyon days of unquestioned power, which it boasted would last for 60 years at the first go, the rallying cry, exultant and triumphant, was clear.

    Pee-Dee-Pee … PAWA!

    But these days, just one year outside power, the music has changed.  A cacophony of chaos and bitterness has taken over.  Sons and daughters of yesterday’s power are busy falling upon themselves with murderous relish.

    Pee-Dee-Pee … commotion!

    Might Iyiola Omisore, via the Ekiti rigging audio tape, be right after all — that PDP is nothing without federal power?  Ha — and what prescience!

    Since losing power, the grandmasters of partisan impunity have known no peace.  But that would seem to get progressively worse, given the ECOMOG show of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff (SAS) of June 13, and its resultant uproar.

    As news had it, SAS with his ECOMOG (euphemism for an unruly and potentially violent mob) stormed the PDP Wadata Plaza national secretariat in Abuja.  SAS claimed he had a court order to take over — and eventually declared himself “in charge” till 2018.

    But court order is one; gaining entrance is another.  Didn’t the Bible say you can’t capture a strongman’s abode if you didn’t first bind him?  The kingdom of PDP post-power years suffereth violence!.

    So SAS, street-wise guy, mobilised his ECOMOG, which seemed to have put the fear of God into Ahmed Markarfi’s Caretaker Committee.  After an initial gra-gra (Nigerian urban-speak for empty braggadocio), the Markarfi committee melted!.

    Now, SAS and his roughnecks are lords of the manor.  Markarfi and co are staking claims from exile!.

    To be fair though: SAS’s ECOMOG may have painted, in stark colours, that SAS won’t take no for an answer.  The police initially rebuffed the mob.  But on Sheriff flashing his court order at the Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase, the police had no choice but to give way to a court order.

    But if SAS had a valid court order, why the ECOMOG flexing of muscles?  Well, it perhaps has something to do with the impunity embedded in PDP’s DNA!.

    The next few days would be very interesting.  SAS is sitting pretty at Wadata. But  Markarfi isn’t finding it amusing at all outside, though the former governor, who found the ultimate stop to Kaduna’s periodic ethno-religious riots, would appear too much of a gentleman to match SAS mob for mob, ECOMOG for ECOMOG!

    Even SAS’s declaration that he would be chairman till 2018 conjures the tension of a cock perched delicately on a taut rope.  Neither cock nor rope would know peace!.

    If SAS delivers on his threat and stays put, would he prevail over the contrasting will of many critical stakeholders and power centres arrayed against him?

    In the ensuing confrontation, PDP may well find itself losing more than federal power.  It may just dissolve under the violence of its own contradictions.

    Meanwhile, at every opportune time, like a drowning man popping up to holler in panic before the final sink, PDP always brags: we’ll retake power in 2019.

    But pray, do the dead take power?

     

    Pee-Dee-Pee … commotion!

  • Rivers’ House of commotion

    SIR: In Christian belief, resurrection is the event in which Jesus Christ came back to life after he had been killed. When an old story came to life, resurrection has taken place. However, in the political arena, and to be specific in Rivers State House of Assembly, the menace we thought had gone with the wind had found its ugly way back to our political terrain.

    Between 1999 and 2007, Nigeria’s democracy experienced series of political gangsterism. The case of Ngige in Anambara State was pathetic. When Governor Ngige fell into the black book of the then President Obasanjo, he was kidnapped, taken to the forest and forced to sign his resignation letter under duress. He was treated like a criminal! Joshua Dariye of Plateau State was impeached by eight House of Assembly members who could not form two-third majority in the House; in Ekiti State, Fayose escaped to a neighbouring country to avoid arrest; Ladoja of Oyo State followed the same path where his colleagues were buried. This was an occasion that preluded the six INEC Direct Data Capture machine being diverted to rig election for the ex governor of Oyo State, Otunba Alao Akala. An incident of order from above as usual was played in the scene. Shameful era indeed!

    This politics of do or die affair disappeared during the era of late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Governors during his administration settled down with rest of minds without intimidation or harassment from “oga at top”.

    What has suddenly gone wrong with our mentality? Instead of consolidating on the nascent democracy and build solid foundation for the younger generation, we now scuttle it simply because somebody, somewhere want to achieve a personal ambition.

    The event that took place in the Rivers State House of Assembly few days ago can best be described as theatre of war. We may also call it a state of anarchy, where there are no rules to individuals conduct. Nigerians watch on live telecast Tuesday how members of the Rivers State House of Assembly demonstrated their real persons. It was like two rival cults members showing their stuff. Human Heads were smashed, blood stains every where. Are these ones honourable? Can any good law come out of these law breakers?

    What could have led to this national embarrassment? It is clear that President Goodluck Jonathan’s quest to remove Amaechi at all means from the governors forum resurfaced at the Rivers House. Hence the speaker has to go to pave way for the smooth impeachment of Governor Amaechi. Amaechi on the other hand is like the son and the father fighting. The son is winning while the father loosing out, but the father wouldn’t give up because he believes he is the father.

    There are more honourable ways of doing things. Why should our leaders operate with such impunity? Our image is at stake! Nigeria no longer set a good example to other African nations, but rather bad example. Let us learn from history to avoid this fire on the mountain.

     

    • Sunday Alifia,

    Ibadan.

  • Football house of commotion

    Football house of commotion

    It is an old dictum that what you love most is likely to be your albatross. Nigerians love football to no end and often, it is their worst source of heartache. Hardball cannot seem to count any two consecutive weeks without a rumpus in Nigeria’s football house. Recall that no sooner did the national football team, the Super Eagles, snatch the African football diadem than we heard that the victorious coach, Stephen Keshi, had resigned in South Africa – before he could even bring the trophy home.

    He resigned! He did not resign, he was only pre-empting a sack – hee-haw, he-haw (as hogs carry on their sordid forage). And that simply blew over just as it started. Nobody told the real story of that momentary madness; no questions asked, no answers given, all the muck was swept under the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and life went on.

    But it never really did go on, things never seem to be at ease with the soulless; our football house never seems to sleep but not out of honest conscientious engagements you can bet. A few weeks after the “I have resigned hoax”, it broke out again like measles in the football house: “We are broke, dead broke,” was the new song and before you say “African Champions”, the fellows in our football office which they glibly call Glass House, went into a frenzy of sacking and appointments. A number of Keshi’s assistants and support staff were chucked out ignominiously. Then some bogus, ‘big men’ appointments were made, people earning fat salaries.

    Remember too that the last African Nations’ cup tournament was not beamed on our national television and were it not for cable TV, Nigerians would have been in the dark all through the competition that we eventually won. Recent World Cup qualifiers (against Kenya and Namibia) were all blacked out on Nigerians and our Eagles are supposed to be a high market value champion brand! The football house’s bag of tricks seems to brim with fresh stunts all the time. A house that claims to be broke would haul the African Champions all the way to the USA in a friendly match against another continental champion, Mexico for just $40,000? It is certain that $40,000 could not have covered the cost of that friendly expedition. Are we to understand that the NFF subsidised a friendly invitation match of that magnitude?

    The truth, Hardball must make known, is that all the above are mere preambles. The big story for today is that Nigeria was recently put to shame by our shambolic football house. The story, which you probably know is that the Super Eagles who are to participate in the on-going Confederation competition in Brazil (starting Saturday June15) were still on transit even on the opening day, missing the opening ceremonies and opening matches.

    What went amiss: the players refused to proceed to Brazil after their World Cup qualifiers in Namibia; their match bonuses had been slashed from $10,000 to $5000 for a win and from $5000 to $2,500 for a draw. Since the new rate was not discussed and agreed with the boys, they refused to accept the slash. Were it not for FIFA that rushed to rescue the situation, Nigeria would not have been at the champions’ spectacle in Brazil. The world would have laughed Nigeria to death. Because of the bunch of bumblers at the NFF, the entire football world was put on the tenterhooks awaiting the arrival of the Eagles, wondering whether they would make it to Brazil one day after the show started.

    We ask: what logic informs the slashing of the bonus of players after they became champions and ought to earn an increase? Why is it that NFF officials earn match bonuses too? How many officials are travelling with the team at a very huge expense? It is Hammer house of horror but as the saying goes, Mr. Hog will eventually get to its destination just that the world around it would suffer unimaginable trouble. What a pity.