The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Hardball

  • The hermit’s outing

    The hermit’s outing

    North Korea is widely known as the hermit state because it is unapologetically reclusive and cares next to nothing about world opinion. The leader, Kim Jong-un, does not have too many friends or allies internationally and hasn’t shown keenness looking for one. He rules his country by despotic, sometimes lethal, whims though the country is officially designated Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

    Countries that have some friendly relations with North Korea are Russia and China, but that perhaps is because these themselves, though great economic and military powers, are treated like pariahs in the West-dominated world system. Russia forged closer diplomatic and military ties with North Korea since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022, with Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Jong-un visiting each other’s countries in recent times. Russia also engages North Korean troops to fight Ukraine that has the support of most Western powers.

    It was like the axiomatic rural recluse coming to town when North Korea featured at the just-concluded United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. The last time it participated in the yearly convocation of world heads of state and governments was in 2018 when its foreign minister travelled to New York for the event. Now, after six years of abstention, North Korea sent a further downgraded representation in Vice-Foreign Minister Kim Son-gyong, which in diplomatic culture could mean intensified disdain for the world body.

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    Son-gyong had his say for his country and told the global gathering North Korea would never give up its nuclear program. “Imposition of ‘denuclearization’ on the DPRK is tantamount to demanding it to surrender sovereignty and right to existence and violate the Constitution,” the official said, adding: “We will never give up sovereignty, abandon the right to existence and violate the Constitution.” He further said: “Thanks to our state’s enhanced physical war deterrent in direct proportion to the growing threat of aggression of the U.S. and its allies, the will of the enemy states to provoke a war is thoroughly contained and the balance of power on the Korean peninsula is ensured.”

    United States President Donald Trump had in September said he wanted to meet Jong-un this year. According to reports, since the American leader’s January inauguration, Jong-un has ignored his repeated calls to revive the direct diplomacy he pursued during his 2017-2021 term in office that produced no deal to halt North Korea’s nuclear program. Son-gyong made known there was no reason to avoid talks with the U.S. if Washington stopped insisting his country give up nuclear weapons, because it would never abandon its nuclear arsenal to end sanctions.

    North Korea has been under U.N. Security Council sanctions since 2006, and the measures have been steadily fortified over the years with the aim of halting Pyongyang’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. The message at UNGA is that it yet has a long road to travel.

  • Hardball scores a hat trick!

    The Mundial, the world’s largest and most exciting sporting fiesta, is on-going. The tempo is fever-pitched and it may be said that every man or woman for that matter who has any blood running in his veins is a partaker of this round leather carnival for the next one month, excitement, euphoria and shouts of joy will herald every goal scored in faraway Russia. If we listen carefully we might just catch the seismic reverberations around the globe when the world shouts gooooaaal in unison!

    Now how did it come to be that Hardball scored a hat trick? No, the first question has to be how did it come to happen that Hardball was playing football?

    Well, as the story streamed, Hardball found itself playing in a major tournament; whether it is in the on-going World Cup or UEFA Champions League final was difficult to ascertain. But that he was doing exploits in a big tournament was all that mattered.

    It also streamed that commentators profiled him as being a graduate  of the world famous Aspire Academy. But not the massive one  in Doha, Qatar which has been a model for many countries to emulate. It turned out yet again that a Qatar Academy annex has been built in Kano by none other than the ancient city’s, nay, Nigeria’s most illustrious son, and money man, Aliko Dangote (May he find eternal favour from Allah).

    And in no time, it has churned great footballing talents from Kano like Ahmed Musa. In fact, record shows that in a short time, there are already enough Ahmed Musa’s in Kano to set up four Super Eagles teams. Indeed, raw talents across Nigeria and the West Coast are said to be trooping to Aspire Academy, Kano.

    It was in this sporting furnace that Hardball was said to have been wrought and now stands tall as a world class player. So there was Hardball playing in this tournament as an offensive mild-fielder (that must be the number 10 position).

    Barely one minute of commencement of the match, springs-in-foot Hardball quickly displaced two defenders, immobilised another and felled yet one more as if he were a log of wood, before picking his spot at a corner of the goal post.

    The second goal was not unrelated to the first having mesmerised the opponent’s defenders as if he were a snake charmer before tucking in the ball.

    And here is the hat trick or so he thought: Hardball received a pass at the periphery of the opponent’s 18-yard box. One look, the goalkeeper was off his line and he arcs to release a firecracker of a shot when a defender throws his foot in the mix. A searing pain explodes in Hardball’s head.

    And Hardball wakes up.

    He has smashed his toes against his bedpost!

     

     

  • You can’t have your cake and diss it

    Let us say that to diss is to dismiss, to disrespect or show contempt for.  Diss is one of those odd slangs that have found wide colloquial usage to the point of almost being pressed to formal lexical assignments. It long sneaked into Hardball’s repertoire of vocabs and here today, for the first time, we must acknowledge, it sits at the head of the class in this write-up.

    There is no intention to diss you dear reader but it is one of those days your subject defies a fitting title. Nothing one thinks up seems appropriate and the clock runs, stoically, intent on breasting the deadline tape before you. At a time like this, in panic, you pick what we call a working title and try working your lexical algebra to the answer you already contrived.

    One of these days, we shall devote a day or two to the daily tyrannies of title crafting. But for today, what we started with was, “The prerogative of a mistress” but that didn’t seem quite suitable and was promptly changed to what we have above.

    But the matter today is about a mistress, a royal mistress at that. News has broken of a mistress of a special kind. A certain Princess Hauwa Momoh of the Momoh Royal Dynasty in Auchi, Edo State ‘broke’ into a national newspaper yesterday and by her admission, claimed she was a mistress of Ado Bayero, the eminent late emir of Kano.

    So why would the royal moonlightings of a monarch catch the fancy of Hardball? Well, the dire after-effect of such amour is right in our face now and the lessons, are rich for those who would care.

    First, Hauwa, 51, who apparently stayed with the famous royal father till his last days, also had children for him. The relationship was never consummated, as the story goes, but Hauwa told The Punch reporter that her father, the late Otaru of Auchi, Ahmed Momoh, had handed her to the then Emir in 1984 when she was a teenager for him to be her guardian.

    But she did a little better, becoming his mistress, made children for him and was kept in comfort it seems while the emir lived. Now that he is no more, she cries out to the public that she has been abandoned by the family of the late emir. Apparently, she and her children have fallen on hard times and have nothing to fall back on.

    But the Emir’s family says categorically that “Islamically”, it is not their responsibility to take care of her; besides, that she is a spendthrift and rather ungrateful to boot.

    Moral /lesson: A princess who chose to be a mistress instead of a queen simply had her cake and dissed it. Well, for want of a better word.

     

     

  • Why A is no longer for Apple

    ‘A’ is now for Arsenal, ‘B’ for ball…and ‘N’ for Neymar. Hardball wagers that this would be the new primer for learning the English alphabets.

    Of course you have guessed it, if you lived on planet earth that is. But Hardball insists that if you have not heard about that football transfer record of this age, then you may well be living in Mars and we plead with you to return to earth pronto and join the bazaar!

    As noted above, ‘A’ is no longer for Apple in the kindergarten primer, it’s for Arsenal or Adidas. ‘B’ of course remains for ball but if you know the current deal, you will make it Barca or Bayern. ‘C’ for Coutinho, or Conte, ‘D’ for Dortmund or Danilo, ‘E’ for EPL, “F” for FIFA or Ferguson…

    ‘M’ would be strictly for – you guessed it – Messi; while ‘R’ would represent Ronaldo or Real Madrid and ‘W’ for Wenger, etc. Go ahead and draw your own A – Z of football for today’s kids.

    Woe betide you those days if you strayed into a football fray on your way from school and played your evening away. Your parents were sure to wallop the daylight out of you. But today, woe betide the parent who does not pay interest in football.

    Football seems poised to take over the world eventually going by its current pricing. Footballers are not only becoming the best earners in the world, their pay and fees have become Neymarish!

    Yes, back to Neymar da Silva Santos Junior, (Neymar for short). This 25-year-old Brazilian soccer whiz has just struck an astronomical transfer deal from Barcelona to Paris Saint-German (PSG). The footballing world apparently did not see it coming.

    When Barcelona slammed a release clause of 222m Euros on Neymar, they probably thought it was impossible for any club to contemplate the option not to mention pay it. But what seemed like a joke at first is now football’s new reality.

    While a coach has described the transaction as “financial doping”, some analysts think the price is right, wagering that Neymay’s cost may rise to about 1 billion euros over the next few years… a the glorious new future of football.

    And here is the catch: those who have head for figures say Neymar would earn about N250 million a week! You see why A will never be for apple again?

  • Hardball buys a dozen whistles

    The war has just begun. A certain village wag said he was hauling in game with bare hands then the community went and bought him a dane gun. “Now am going to bring in all the game in the forest in one day … plus the forest too!” he boasted.

    Now you know Hardball for blowing hot and shaking down the apples (both ripe and unripe) for free. Now that it’s a sweepstakes; now that a piece of the national cake is on offer, Hardball may well change his name to Ironball.

    It has dawned on us all that our country is awash with cash and that the age of the whistleblowers is here. These fellows would become the new rich; the emergent middle class. Going by the Osborne flats cash haul of about N13 billion, just one per cent of that would be N130 million. This is a decent bundle in any currency and whoever makes such a killing in one fell swoop would automatically be inducted into the elite middle class club.

    Now you see why Hardball has elected to acquire his own whistles – in a manner of speaking, and morph into a professional whistleblower?  That is the future; call it the art of the extra-intellectual intelligence or cash intelligence for short. Hardball has been scouring his mental landscape to find those family, friends and associates who may remotely be sitting on a stash of cash one can squeal upon (no paddy for jungle as we say in the streets).

    I hereby send a notice to my politically exposed friends to be wary. I will take no prisoners (me too I want to ride Ferrari).

    Now Hardball is taking this art one notch up. We are setting up an Independent Whistle-blowers Institute of Nigeria (IWIN). Imagine having well trained, wizard whistle-blowers around here. The curriculum will include acute intuition, insight, extra-sensory perception and ability to understand the nature, texture and measure of cash.

    It will also include tell-tale signs to look for if you want to track a loot; for instance, paying a special attention to politicians or bosses who claim to be farmers and purportedly own farms in some remote places, but you never know them to harvest anything. They are probably planting cash!

    Consider also, those who forever have projects they are always travelling some distance to supervise. They are more likely building and nurturing safe houses.

    Finally, watch out for those bosses who always carry large bulging suitcases to and fro work as if they are the only ones doing all the work in the world. They may be siphoning cash.

    It is a new growth field and Hardball is glad to be ahead on it!

  • Olym-picknics

    How come Hardball misses out on the ‘good things’ of this great country? Maybe he needs to call it quits with his ‘fruitless daily lexical exertions’ and go out there and ‘get a life’ as they say these days. For instance, what on earth is Hardball doing in Nigeria right now as if he were a land-lubber? Why is he not in Rio? That is where all smart, intelligent and beautiful people of the world are right now.

    Talking about missing out, let’s do a checklist: first was during the 16-year binging of PDP when petrodollar was aplenty like the waters of both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. All that booty passed under Hardball’s bridge so to speak and not a morsel could he corner.

    Second, consider the so-called Dasukigate: never in the life of any nation had so much slush fund been disbursed as if the money was burning up the treasury and needed to be evacuated pronto! Imagine companies being floated overnight with some having such appellations as Knight Grenades Inc., or something like that. Again, imagine that dozens of individuals got sums ranging between N1.5 billion to N800 million. Where in the world are individuals handed such criminal cash?

    Three, you must have heard about the padding issue in the House of Representatives? Now pad of any type makes Hardball queasy. Be it sanitary pad, adult pad or nary ice pad; any sort of pad comes messy and definitely not something for public consumption – not for Hardball’s publics anyway!

    But some fellows who pretend to be legislating for you and I (people who should be legislated out of existence) have turned something as noxious as pads into the largest gravy train that ever chugged through this land. All of these are big ticket machinations or ‘projects’ if you like, by smart alecs for perusing public funds. And Hardball never partook in all these ‘epochs’. So what is he? Or better put, who does he think he is? A Martian or some delusional entity trapped in the thickets of words?

    Well and now this: every real man or woman is right now in Rio de Janeiro, that feisty Brazilian city probably founded on hedonism. The games of the Olympics are ongoing right now. But while other countries’ contingents are doing exploits and hauling medals, Nigeria’s, especially the officials, are doing what they know best: shopping and picknicking.

    According to reports, numerous Sports Ministry and Olympics Committee members’ family are said to be strewn all over Brazil now – shopping and carousing – most likely at the expense of tax-payers. Meanwhile, hardly any official duty accomplished. Contingents’ ceremonial dress could not be ferried to Rio, thus Nigeria’s athletes had to don mere tracksuits during the opening parade. Allowances and hotel bills could not be paid. It took Mikel Obi, one of the players, to bail Nigeria out. No official was present when the solitary Nigerian boxer Efe Ajagba had his first fight… a haul of tainted medals.

    What a wonderful Olym-picknic and Hardball is missing in it all.

  • All hail Field Marshal Hardball!

    Now do not laugh dear reader, it is not what you think, but suffice to say that interesting times require interesting responses. The matter at hand demands proper illustration and adumbration even, to make it palatable to you dear reader.

    Therefore, as the women of the East used to say with relish: never fail to master the dance steps in vogue during your time lest you live to regret when you are old. Another wise saying of old is that: do not discard a baby because its paternity is in contest, for you never can tell which head will wear the crown tomorrow. And this final one: the bat that did not hasten to find its perch in the cluster when others are doing so would have to sleep alone.

    Avid readers of Hardball would have caught the drift of today’s gist now. It simply is that this business of militancy, cultism and even terrorism is the next big boom. Anyone who cannot cotton on to it now may have himself to blame in the years ahead.

    First, these deathly phenomena are transiting from despicable vices that they were just about five years ago to a noble vocation which transmutes practitioners to the status of a statesman. In other words, if you achieve some state of invincibility for a few days or months and are able to hold out against the sovereign forces over a couple of skirmishes, then you are made. You can begin to call for dialogue at your terms.

    Having caught on to the wisdom that this is the biggest job in this town now, Hardball contemplates venturing into it. Here is how it is going to be: he has taken the title of a field marshal. Since some of these small boys have assumed the title of ‘General’, ‘Commander’ and even ‘Government’ (imagine having two governments under one sovereignty). So Field Marshal is still cool.

    The full name of the group would therefore be ‘Field Marshal Hardball Creeks Musketeers’ (aka: Full Cream Milk Boys, FCMBs). It’s getting interesting dear reader isn’t it? The beauty of this business is that you need not register or seek licence or any permission. Just announce yourself via the social or mass media and begin to cause trouble anyhow you know.

    Just consider that over a dozen militant groups have emerged or splintered from the Niger Delta Avengers, NDA, since they took the ‘bold’ step about six months ago and held the rest of us to ransom.

    To summarise, the loony in Mgborokoto village told his kinsmen who gathered around his burning hut that he saw a bonfire next door and he decided to torch his own hut too so that all the fires would be put out at the same time.

    Moral: If government has decided to beatify and dialogue with all sorts of miscreants, Hardball might as well set up his own ‘shop’ too so that all the ‘dialoguing’ would be done at the same time.

  • Hardball bids for bankrupt states

    By this piece, Hardball is applying to take over the 15 states in Nigeria said to be at the brink of bankruptcy. Of course, this means a state of insolvency whereby the state government cannot meet its basic financial obligations. As we have seen in the last one year or so, many states of the federation have been failing intermittently in meeting basics, such as monthly pensions and salaries bills.

    Some states have been doing gidigbo with these basic obligations that Hardball is of the mind that they need help. Some proposed paying half salaries; some have mooted a cancellation of many months of arrears among other gimmicks some minders of some states are dredging up.

    But our elders have one rather mischievous saying to the effect that when a man fights to the point of hauling fist-full of sands at his opponent instead of throwing manly punches, then the fellow is calling for help. And one asks: why would elders watch two men slug it out until their tongues begin to hang out in breathless palpitation? Well, Hardball digresses.

    The point being made is: a man who cannot pay workers’ salaries for four months consecutively is probably never going to be able to pay it in four years. And like the tired pugilist of the old fable, who begins to throw fist-full of sands instead of punches, he sure needs help. Of course he would never admit it and call for help; and in street fights there are no towels to be thrown in as a mark of surrender as happens in prized fights. But urgent help is in order.

    Hardball hereby posits that in a rather charged atmosphere of deceit and chicanery, all would be fair that ends well – even euthanasia. In other words, you either allow the fellow to brawl to his sad end or you help him out of his misery by breaking the fight.

    Now that it has become apparent that most states’ leaders have reached the end of their tethers, Hardball is playing with some ideas. He is waiting in the wings to play the merry undertaker; he is putting together, a consortium of consultants to inherit all the dying states.

    Hardball projects that soon enough the crunch will come upon them. Soon enough, the Federal Government’s bailout will dry up; soon enough the workers would refuse to take it anymore and in the throes of acute hunger, ‘eat’ up their traducers.

    Hardball will come to the rescue. And what is the magic wand he is coming with, you might ask? Simple, very simple. As Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson wrote in “Why Nations Fail,” one will simply initiate a government that will be open, transparent, accountable and responsive to the citizens and the great masses of the people.

    One example: it is utterly criminal for any state in Nigeria to declare an IGR of N2.2 billion in an entire year. Such a government is simply not responsive, transparent and accountable to its people. Such a state is simply stealing from its citizens and it is destined to fail.

  • Why economics makes Hardball squeamish

    Law we know, apothecary we remember, even usury. But whoever introduced economics into the life of man? Hardball would want to wager that since this imprecise double-speak known as economics was foisted upon modern man, since then were his woes compounded beyond measure.

    Economics as a course of study or body of knowledge is akin to a thick forest. No, it is akin to a Nigerian forest – read Sambisa – uncharted, overgrown, darkly and harbouring myriads of gnomes and ghouls. Apart from the denizens of the forest, there are hardly known entrances or exits. Economics, like an ancient forest, is a shroud in the vicinity of a shrine.

    Why is Hardball taking this hard if not semi-literate stance against one of man noblest inventions and callings? You would ask. And you might add that just because he is incapable of grasping the intricate loops of economics and the arcana of microeconomics does not invalidate what is perhaps mankind’s most exciting exertion.

    Well then, let’s look at Nigeria’s foreign currency policy today as a case study of how economics work.

    First, Nigeria’s currency, the naira started to crash rapidly last year against major foreign currencies as the prices of crude oil crashed. This stands to reason as oil sales is Nigeria’s major source of foreign exchange. Conversely, Nigeria is an import-dependent country. Most of her foreign exchange earnings she dexteriously hands back as she ships in all manner of things including food and the entire contents of the White man’s junkyards.

    Now, economics as Hardball understands it is that we do not have enough forex to continue our jamboree of yesterday. It means naira should simply exchange according to its market value against other currencies. Instead government tried to artificially prop the naira against other currencies.

    To illustrate, it is like a poor man trying to live up to the standards of his very rich neighbour. Sooner he finds out that he cannot sustain that for long without getting into serious trouble.

    This is what has happened to the naira since the crash of crude oil prices. It was inevitable that the value of the naira would have to fall accordingly in the short run while government shores up productivity. But, the Federal Government chose to hold up the naira and inadvertently, holding up the economy to the point of a near-recession.

    But, here is how a frazzled Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Godwin Emefiele captured it after the meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) last week: “MPC in its assessment of the relevant risk profiles came to the conclusion that although the balance of risks remains tilted against growth; previous decisions need time to crystallize. Consequently, in a period of stagflation, the policy options are very limited.” If this is not jargon…         

    Hardball’s interpretation in simple English: The naira is now free to seek its level in the market.

    With low crude oil price, high petrol pump price and a floating naira, Nigerians are in for a long night. And unless government seriously pursues diversification, economic jargons we shall have for supper.

  • Hardball Haberdasheries LLC

    Hardball prided himself on being creative, but recent newsbreaks have splashed egg on his face. In spite of what he might think, among ‘knowing’ circles, the joke is actually on him. This may explain why he seeks to make amends now though laughingly belated.

    Please take another look at the above title. Do not be fooled; it is not a title, it is a call card of sort, a billboard and an advertisement of Hardball’s new venture in expectation of the next great Dasukiboom.

    If you still don’t get the gist, sorry, am afraid you are probably as dull as Hardball. Here is it. Last Monday, the Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA, (made popular by a certain Col. Sambo Dasuki) a list of companies and organisations that had done contracts with the ONSA during the Dasuki epoch.

    Before we proceed, let it be said that any adult Nigerian who does not know about Dasukigate now must be a security risk to the nation and must be arrested forthwith, tried for treasonable felony and put away indefinitely in protective custody. No apologies for digression.

    Hardball had counted about 241 names of companies from that list published by the ONSA. And a prior notice had been published on December 14, 2015, we are told. We speak of no fewer than 300 largely emergency  companies/ contractors.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Now you begin to see the picture; can you see the sheer throng of cloven foot trooping to the ONSA. Even the Federal Tenders Board could not have done better in such a short time. What it means is that the NSA had more ‘quality’ time with contractors than the service chiefs prosecuting the terror.

    But what struck Hardball first was the sheer genius of Nigerians in matters of contracts and making quick bucks. On the list are names of enterprises probably crafted from paradise. Let’s take some samples: London Advertising Limited; Sky Expert Nigeria Limited; Centre for Etiquette Protocol and Social Graces Limited; 2020 Nigeria Limited; Brains & Hammers Limited; Forum for Protection of Critical National Infrastructure; People & Passion Consult Limited; Coordinating Committee of Traditional Rulers; Nigeria in Safe hands and Traditional rulers of Nigeria, to pick on a few.

    Just by way of an aside: there is on the list also, a certain Romix Technologies Limited infamous for a N2 billion scam case pending for nearly a decade. Now the EFCC can do a remix of the Romix album abi? But we digress.

    Finally, the real pain for Hardball is that this huge bazaar happened under his nose, yet he had no inkling of it. Where on earth was he when the rest of the world was having a ball? Jeez, he could have been crushed with bags of cash and he would never have known!

    Well, now let it be known by all that Hardball could at least think up a company name, as written above (registered or not). Let it be seen that Hardball could design a letter-headed paper and rustle up a proposal. Better late than never, isn’t it? Please look out for Hardball Haberdasheries LLC!