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Tag: hubris

  • Osun: hubris trumps hubris

    In Osun, hubris just trumped hubris — alleged arrogance of performance, trumping bumbling hedonism, venality and vanity.

    It was an ultra-close call — and it wasn’t pretty!

    Up till the last second, the wide and merry way to Ekiti, Ayo Fayose’s Ekiti, was beckoning — satanic allure, charm, magic, force and all.

    But as in Ekiti, Osun’s escape came from the Biblical rejected stone; which became the crucial pillar, in Gboyega Oyetola’s win.

    Dayo Adeyeye, a run-away progressive, in Ekiti, nicked the Kayode Fayemi encore.

    Imagine what could have happened, had Adeyeye not broken ranks with Fayose, thus exiting with the bulk of his Ise-Orun votes?

    In Osun, it was the much vilified Iyiola Omisore that made the difference.  Whatever his controversial political biography, history would record his critical support, which tilted the scale, when it mattered most.

    Otherwise?  Like Fayose’s Ekiti, Ademola Adeleke would have vaulted Osun right back into the Stone Age.

    Or how would you fancy a 58-year old, that flunked his school certificate examination in 1981, but is linked to an alleged examination forgery in 2017, for the same O’ Level certificate, even as a sitting senator of the Federal Republic, gunning for a South West governorship in 2018?

    What people vote such a persona, and hope all would be well?  That is the depth of Osun’s narrow escape, with less than 500 votes — the closest in Nigerian gubernatorial election history!

    Still, like Ekiti, which plumbed the Fayose debacle, the Omisore intervention may yet prove very costly — except both sides strictly stick to the terms of their deal.  But more on that presently.

    The Osun see-saw is clearly a grim metaphor of acute retardation in Yoruba political thinking.  In a South West that prides itself unrepentantly progressive, basking in the infallibility of the Obafemi Awolowo vision, a reactionary incubus is setting in — and its long shadow seems getting longer by the day.

    In 1999, an Ademola Adeleke candidacy, in any South West state, would have been the butt of derision, to be furiously guillotined on Election Day.  Yet, an Osun of 2018 nearly saw a headless dancer, that articulated near-nothing, almost coasting home to victory.

    But give it to the Yoruba conservatives.  In their desperation for election wins, they don’t mind throwing any jerk at the electorate.  That is why the Osun PDP would look over an Akin Ogunbiyi, and pick an Ademola Adeleke.

    Fayose was governmental poison, sugar-coated and packaged as stomach infrastructure champion.  But  Adeleke’s paralyzing profile, of a gubernatorial vacuum, appears even worse than Fayose’s infantile tomfoolery.

    That should plumb an all-time low — at least, in the Yoruba South West.

    Yet, all that seemed not to matter.  The Afenifere, in Omisore’s Social Democratic Party (SDP), seemed ready to cut a deal with Adeleke, ideological warts, barrenness and all.  At that fatal moment, their ancestral feud with Bola Tinubu triumphantly trumped their fealty to Awo’s developmental ideology!

    It took an Omisore, pariah in good times, comrade in grudge times, to puncture their delusory ballon; and show a far keener sense, of both history and posterity.

    Long before, much of the South West media had turned livid with scalding, plebeian hate, against a sitting governor; and profaned the public trust in their care, with personal hostility; and institutional rascality and vendetta.

    No thanks to this rabid hysteria, from an otherwise respectable society turned so despicable in their professional misconduct, outgoing Governor Rauf Aregbesola, had become the devil-in-chief, fit for severe roasting.

    Yet, compare and contrast to neighbouring Ekiti, and the callous conspiracy would appear clear.

    Even on the skewed passion on salary defaults — a pan-Nigeria crisis fraudulently shaped as exclusive Osun “wickedness” — proclaim Aregbesola guilty as charged.  Yet, did Ekiti’s Fayose who, in his cheap theatrics, had earlier joined in the Aregbe roasting, do better?

    Now, contrast Fayose’s parlous infrastructure re-stock to Aregbesola’s record, in futuristic roads, bridges and eye-popping schools, among others.

    Which of the two would history remember to have dug deep and made a brilliant difference, even at a time of acute adversity?

    It is eerie, indeed, that Osun’s September 22 election nearly repeated history, ironically at the dawn of an earlier epochal developmental push, in the old Western Region.

    The great Awo had launched the free primary education programme.  But some elite back then, as some Osun elite now, thumbed down the project, in a blitz of fearsome propaganda, led by the opposition National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC).

    The next federal elections, Awo’s Action Group (AG) lost — and urban Ilesa and Ife, proudly NCNC bastions, gloried in the AG loss.  On September 22, most of Ijesa, urban or rural, would have gloated over an APC loss, just as urban Ife went SDP.

    But whatever the present hurts, just like the great Awo, history would be far kinder to Aregbesola.

    He has put in place quality infrastructure to make the next set of Osun youths very competitive, via quality education.  He has also laid a solid infrastructural foundation that, if continued, could, in a short time, vault Osun from the puddle of “civil service state”.

    Moreover, he more than any politician of his generation, has demonstrated fierce fealty to South West integration, as a key engine of Nigeria’s re-federalization.

    Awo would later call his electoral loss, for doing the right thing, “eebu d’ola” (insult-turned-praise).  For his developmental work in Osun, across many strata of society, Aregbesola’s swan song won’t be much different.

    But that doesn’t, in any way, suppose he didn’t make his own mistakes.  He did.  Not a few, friend or foe, would continue to pepper him for leading his party from a near-thumping majority in 2014, to a cliff-hanging win in 2018, aside from a net-loss in his native Ijesaland.  Still, it could have been worse!

    That takes the discourse back to Alhaji Oyetola, the governor-elect.  If it were a parliamentary poll, the Osun mandate would birth a “hung parliament”, with neither government nor opposition having a clear mandate.

    That just shows the ultra-tight rope Oyetola has to walk; and somewhat maintain a delicate balance.  It is good he has pledged an all-inclusive government, driven by mass consultation.

    On immediate expediencies, he must consummate, to the letter, the Omisore deal.  Otherwise, he risks an election-time ally turn an implacable foe.

    Besides, such unconsummated deals, in Ekiti, gave Ayo Fayose political resurrection, that almost doomed all Ekiti to collective death.  To boot, it also turned Omisore against the Adelekes, when it mattered most, after their Osun West collaborative senatorial triumph.

    But on no account should Osun’s developmental strides be halted: the school feeding programme and other social safety net schemes, road infrastructure and futuristic schools — within budgetary limits of course.

    That is the hard road to gubernatorial greatness — beyond the short-term lure of belly politics.

  • Hubris in different cultures

    Hubris in different cultures

    From the fierce, jealous and fiery Jehovah of the Old Testament, to the Divine grace of the new, by the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, Christianity is bound to be benign, even when passing across a grim message.

    So, when Christians pray the prayer, “May you end well”, it’s a benign way to warn against hubris, and its attendant catastrophe.  As that prayer begs God for His mercies, it also warns you to be cautious, and be at your best behaviour.

    The Greeks, with their myths, in which the gods hold the uppity human in almost near contempt, baiting him to trip so they could burst into an uproarious laugh, there is little time for benignity.

    With Oedipus’s classics, Oedipus Rex, Antigone, et al, the gods are all too eager to watch man trip and fall.  King Oedipus, with the characteristic savage fatalism of Greek myths, did all in his power to avert the baleful prophecy of killing his father and marrying his mother.

    But that terrible sentence did not only come to pass, it drew enough cross-cultural pathos for Ola Rotimi (God bless his soul!) to forge a parallel in Yoruba culture: The Gods are Not to Blame.

    So, the caveat emptor, in Greek traditional myth is real:  Only the dead and buried are well and truly lucky!  The harsh warning is clear: jaunty man, behave yourself.  Until the second you dies and get buried, the gods are always at the ready to get you!

    That’s the dire Greek warning against hubris.

    In Yoruba culture, aside from the total submission to the Almighty God, Olodumare, warning against hubris comes through proverbs and folktales, to which the human is supposed to listen and from which (s)he is supposed to learn.

    One of such concerns the tortoise, the crafty weeping boy of Yoruba folk tales, just as man himself is the gods’ weeping boy, in Greek cosmogony.

    In one of those tales, the tortoise suddenly declared he was going on a journey.

    “When will you come back?” he was asked.

    “When I’m disgraced,” he quipped, all wit, all pride!  Even then, the stupidest of imbeciles would know disgrace should be no wilful wish for anyone, talk less of the all-wise tortoise!

    Indeed, this tortoise quip so impressed Prof. Ola Rotimi, that in his tragic play, Kurunmi, he dramatised that boast to set up the dramatic fall of Kurunmi, the Aare Ona Kakanfo, in a war with Basorun Ogunmola-led Ibadan army.  Of course at the end, it was tragedy foretold, but which the all-powerful Kurunmi was fated not to see.

    It started with conceit.  It ended with hubris.  Another uppity man, dead to reason, had fallen, to the thunderous roar of the gods!

    Well, this is no Tuesday morning foray into religion, literature and culture.  It is rather Hardball’s timely warning to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his latest political gambit.

    Well, the man has his democratic right to push his opinion.  He calls it patriotic intervention.   His opposers could equally call it democratic rascality.  All fit in with the democratic code, in which the majority opinion carries the day.

    Still, the dynamics of democracy is that those who scream “hail him! hail him!” when the story is good, will also screech “nail him! nail him!” when it all turns sour.

    So, Hardball sincerely hopes and prays Obasanjo’s latest intervention is indeed patriotic; and Nigeria would be richer for it.

    But if it a tortoise journey, from which he won’t come back before disgrace, the gods would claim only his scalp — not of those now hailing or nailing!

  • Hubris Vs arrogance

    Hubris Vs arrogance

    It wasn’t exactly like Fela’s immortal “wahala sleep yanga go wake am”.  It was more like Hubris doing provocative struts in Arrogance’s liar.

    That was one wahala doing monkey business with another.  It was fated to be explosive.

    So when Dino (you know who), with the rest of his ad hoc Senate committee on “Economic wastes in the Nigerian Customs Service” in tow (sounds like custom-made senatorial wahala, if you’d permit the pun), started running his mouth about why Customs’ Hammeed Ali didn’t exactly come hopping down to the gate, and prostrate before Dino’s committee members (if you’d excuse a Dino-esque hyperbole), he knew he was fishing for trouble.

    When finally Dino crashed down the gavel, to signal the Senate of the Federal Republic had descended on the Customs, and that the sub-humans there must begin to shiver, that clear act of intimidation was tantamount to waging red flag in front of a raging bull.

    Hammeed Ali, military conceit and all, swiftly called his bluff, and virtually plastered Dino’s face with rotten tomatoes.  He ought to have known: his adversary, who had kept a Senate, distracted over inanities, at bay over the empty battle over Customs uniform, takes absolutely no prisoners!  It is to Dino’s eternal shame that he picked a wrong battle, at a wrong venue.

    The facts?  Dino Melaye, leading his Senate committee to the Abuja headquarters of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), accused the Customs boss of breaking protocol, since he met the  visiting committee, not at the gate (as “protocol demanded”) but right at the meeting venue.  He therefore charged Ali with lack of decorum and courtesy.

    Ali lost no time to call his bluff, retorting that since no senator comes over to the gate to usher in any citizen invited to its chamber, the Senate could not, in all good conscience, expect citizens to roll before it, when it goes visiting other chambers.

    The truth is decorum is win-win; and civil society thrives on common courtesies.  But no laws enforce these courtesies.  Only reciprocal respect does.

    So, while it sounded arrogant for the Customs boss to virtually tell Dino and his committee to go jump inside the nearest lake and get drowned, it was the height of hubris for Dino to give such a stentorian, school masterly lecture, on an alleged protocol, no more than a convention, which you cannot legally enforce.

    To Hardball, this is another needless distraction.  While Nigerians, corporate and individual, should hold the Senate and other democratic institutions in high esteem, these institutions too should be wary of standing on their institutional dignity.

    Mutual respect is it.  The Senate is no god to be worshipped, willy-nilly, by the people, on pains of dire repercussions.  It rather should earn the people’s respect, even awe, by its exemplary conduct.

    This particular Senate hasn’t conducted itself with such grace.  Neither has Dino, with his often maverick comments and acts, the decorum expected of a senator.

    Still, now that senatorial hubris has clashed with military conceit, it is hoped both sides have learnt customized (ah, that word again!) humility.

    But democratic ethos demands that both parties work together, not for the hurting Senate, as it is wont, to withdraw into its laager to plot further anti-Customs mischief; and Customs’ Ali, with swashbuckling deering-do, to plot further anti-Senate rebellion.

  • Hubris setting in on NFF?

    The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), under Amaju Pinnick, has set a record in Nigeria’s FIFA World Cup quest.  Unlike in the past when the last round of qualifying matches equated severe heartaches, and even grimmer permutation in the anxiety-gripped Nigerian mind, this season is easy does it.

    Nigeria has already landed in Russia.  Whatever happens in November in Algeria — win, lose or draw — is absolutely of no significance.  Nigeria could go in for the highest possible qualification haul; with it hoping to land an easier opening group at the Mundial.  Algeria too might want to save some national pride.  But beyond these, absolutely no issue.

    Which might be why, it would appear, Christopher Greene, NFF Technical Committee chairman,  is talking like a greenhorn, flexing muscles over nothing when he ought to focus his minds on the substance, and creating what may yet become a useless controversy over Vincent Enyeama.  According to  Sporting Life (the sports paper in The Nation stable),  Mr. Greene threatened Gernot Rohr with sack, should he continue with his come-back talk with Enyeama, former Eagles skipper and number 1 goalkeeper, before he retired — or more accurately, forced into retirement — by former manager, Sunday Oliseh.

    To be sure, Oliseh was a lethal weapon of mass destruction, the way he in no time destroyed the team the late Stephen Keshi left behind, forcing many senior team members to quit (Enyeama’s case was particularly instructive, for it came from disputes over permission or not to attend to a domestic issue and demotion as captain), en route to running the team aground.

    Perhaps struck by the gargoyle he had created, Oliseh himself fled, leaving the team in the lurch, on the virtual eve of crucial World Cup and AFCON qualifying matches.  But thank God: Rohr came and, with his team of near-rookies, he walked through the virtual shadows of death unscathed —  and qualified in style.

    Which makes Greene’s threat of we-sack-you-should-you-again- talk-to-Enyeama as rather amusing, if not outright ludicrous, in more senses than one.

    For starters, who so easily dismisses a coach that would appear on the way to building a formidable team out of almost nothing?

    Then, who sacks a coach, not because he didn’t deliver on his contractual mandate but because of the pettiness of talking or not talking to a player he may be convinced is crucial to the success of his assignment — and in a milieu where the same NFF blares “giving Rohr a free hand” as some newfound NFF national anthem?

    Greene and co — if he has any sympathizer in house — should stop playing God.  Rohr has been diligent in his work.  Yes, Rohr wouldn’t have been possible but for the astuteness of the NFF Board.  That is  marvellous — even then, that is a management function, which should stay at the NFF Boardroom.

    But it was also a saving grace — the same NFF board that invited Oliseh to rout the team has brilliantly made thing good with Rohr.

    Still, to come into the open and threaten the manager on such inanity, which reeks with pettiness?  Absolute balderdash!

    Let Rohr be free to talk to and pick any player he feels is central to his plans.  He will stand or fall by his choice of players.  It would appear reassuring though that the NFF secretary-general has disowned the Greene comment, saying the NFF didn’t know about it.

    That is the direction to go.  We can’t because of the hubris of a few create a distraction that could plague the team in Russia.

  • Hubris setting in on NFF?

    The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), under Amaju Pinnick, has set a record in Nigeria’s FIFA World Cup quest.  Unlike in the past when the last round of qualifying matches equated severe heartaches, and even grimmer permutation in the anxiety-gripped Nigerian mind, this season is easy does it.

    Nigeria has already landed in Russia.  Whatever happens in November in Algeria — win, lose or draw — is absolutely of no significance.  Nigeria could go in for the highest possible qualification haul; with it hoping to land an easier opening group at the Mundial.  Algeria too might want to save some national pride.  But beyond these, absolutely no issue.

    Which might be why, it would appear, Christopher Greene, NFF Technical Committee chairman,  is talking like a greenhorn, flexing muscles over nothing when he ought to focus his minds on the substance, and creating what may yet become a useless controversy over Vincent Enyeama.  According to  Sporting Life (the sports paper in The Nation stable),  Mr. Greene threatened Gernot Rohr with sack, should he continue with his come-back talk with Enyeama, former Eagles skipper and number 1 goalkeeper, before he retired — or more accurately, forced into retirement — by former manager, Sunday Oliseh.

    To be sure, Oliseh was a lethal weapon of mass destruction, the way he in no time destroyed the team the late Stephen Keshi left behind, forcing many senior team members to quit (Enyeama’s case was particularly instructive, for it came from disputes over permission or not to attend to a domestic issue and demotion as captain), en route to running the team aground.

    Perhaps struck by the gargoyle he had created, Oliseh himself fled, leaving the team in the lurch, on the virtual eve of crucial World Cup and AFCON qualifying matches.  But thank God: Rohr came and, with his team of near-rookies, he walked through the virtual shadows of death unscathed —  and qualified in style.

    Which makes Greene’s threat of we-sack-you-should-you-again- talk-to-Enyeama as rather amusing, if not outright ludicrous, in more senses than one.

    For starters, who so easily dismisses a coach that would appear on the way to building a formidable team out of almost nothing?

    Then, who sacks a coach, not because he didn’t deliver on his contractual mandate but because of the pettiness of talking or not talking to a player he may be convinced is crucial to the success of his assignment — and in a milieu where the same NFF blares “giving Rohr a free hand” as some newfound NFF national anthem?

    Greene and co — if he has any sympathizer in house — should stop playing God.  Rohr has been diligent in his work.  Yes, Rohr wouldn’t have been possible but for the astuteness of the NFF Board.  That is  marvellous — even then, that is a management function, which should stay at the NFF Boardroom.

    But it was also a saving grace — the same NFF board that invited Oliseh to rout the team has brilliantly made thing good with Rohr.

    Still, to come into the open and threaten the manager on such inanity, which reeks with pettiness?  Absolute balderdash!

    Let Rohr be free to talk to and pick any player he feels is central to his plans.  He will stand or fall by his choice of players.  It would appear reassuring though that the NFF secretary-general has disowned the Greene comment, saying the NFF didn’t know about it.

    That is the direction to go.  We can’t because of the hubris of a few create a distraction that could plague the team in Russia.

  • Hubris among medical profesionals

    SIR: Have you noticed that American doctor’s append only MD as their titles? Indeed, to practice in the United States require that a doctor specialize in at least one of the many areas of medicine after the basic qualification. Therefore, as a specialist, the only insignia is the MD, though a description as a fellow may follow to show the specialty. Other appendages may include PhD, MPH and a few others. The reason is simple: A medical doctor (MD) is a medical doctor. The difference lies in the area of practice and expertise- psychiatry, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology etc.

    To become a specialist therefore is a necessity expected of every doctor. It is because of this that a national matching system for residential programme exists in the US. It is equally because of this that the emphasis is on the quality and standard of each residential programme and its director rather than examinations.

    Finally, it is basically because of this that the speciality board examinations at the end of the residency programme is optional, or voluntary, taken only to satisfy members of the public or, if the individual is desirous of practice across state lines(a different state from which he trained).

    Specialization in medicine therefore, must never be a privilege; for what is the aim of specialization? To break down medical knowledge into discrete and manageable entities and enable an increasing depth of learning and skill acquisition therein. A division of labor of sorts.

    In contrast, specialists in Nigeria readily flaunt their titles,FWACP, FWACS, FMCP etc. These are well earned /deserved titles no doubt. Problem, however is the attempt to make specialization an elitist enclave.

    Elitism seems to be native to Nigeria. It is almost a cultural thing. Everyone wants to show the other how much worthier he is above his fellow. There is a subtle but fierce battle to be the first always, primus inter pares! Competition, whilst not necessarily bad, but competition for her own sake, and in an unbridled manner is a death march! It breeds excessive rivalry and a penchant for ruthless despicable acts in order to suppress.It is therefore of little wonder that even within medical circles this culture festers.

    To specialize in an area of medicine has become an elitist venture. The process is brutal, dehumanizing and deliberately so. The specialists who are also meant to train others are the ones who make it so by not being responsible or accountable in any guise for the resident doctors under them; by the desire for elitism and exclusivity, and through the proliferation of multiple landmines called examinations at every corner and stage.

    The more vexatious of these issues is tying career advancement and promotions of the resident doctor to these centralized examinations without recourse to the sensitivities and peculiarities of the individual residential programmes! These exams are landmines designed to frustrate and eliminate anyone but the best of the best-hubris!

    Candidates are pitted against candidates and you have results like only seven out almost 300 hundred candidates passed and exam nationwide( family medicine)!

    Since knowledge in medicine is so deep and wide, there has to be, of necessity, specialization where a doctor further undergoes a residency programme. A residential programme affords the doctor the opportunity to focus on an area of medicine, work with specialists in their day to day care of patients, witness, participate and ultimately become a specialist himself. That is the concept of specialization and this should be our minimum requirement too. Some of our people are wont us to believe it is the preserve of some special of privileged few.

    Why is elitism and hubris so rife?

     

    Timi Babatunde MD

    Lagos

  • Wages of hubris

    It is not unlikely that some Nigerians would pass off the controversies surrounding the purchase of two choice BMW cars by the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) as needless storm over nothing. I must confess that few of those I shared my thoughts with on the matter in the course of the weekend couldn’t understand what the matter was let alone be bothered.

    For some, the problem was the newshounds. Supposing the purchase was captured in the NCAA budget? How are we to know that the $1.6 million (N225 million) cost was outrageous? Do we have evidence that procurement rules were not followed? And should these suffice to stoke the furore that we have seen since the news broke?

    In any case, isn’t that the way the business of governance is conducted in these parts?

    I understand why many Nigerians, long inured to malfeasances by public officials would see nothing wrong with a minister directing a parastatal under her watch to purchase her fancy auto for her exclusive use. The development, in my view, not only underlies the grave crisis of values governing public service, but is at the heart of the crisis of governance.

    I have taken good look at the rationalisation offered by Joe Obi, Stella Oduah’s Special Assistant on Media few days after the scandal broke. It provided a good window into the hubris that has become the driver of governance, a measure of the extent to which the cancer gnawing slowly at the heart of the nation’s soul has come to metastasise.

    “Yes” offered Obi, “some security vehicles were procured for the use of the office of the honourable minister in response to the clear and imminent threat to her personal security and life following the bold steps she took to reposition the sector”.

    And he would further supply the context: “When she came on board as the minister, she inherited a lot of baggage in terms of the concession and lease agreements in the sector, which were clearly not in the interest of the government and people of Nigeria. And so, she took bold steps and some of these agreements were reviewed and some were terminated, and these moves disturbed some entrenched interests in the sector, and within this period, she began to receive some imminent threats to her life; therefore, the need for the vehicles”.

    And as if to reassure Nigerians of his boss’ good faith, he asserts: “It should be noted that these vehicles are not personal vehicles and were not procured in the name of the honourable minister; they are utility vehicles and are for the office of the minister, and if she leaves the office, she will not be taking the vehicles along with her.”

    In this, Obi is at least more truthful than Yakubu Datti, the so-called coordinating spokesperson for aviation parastatals who, without thinking, simply dismissed the report as lacking in substance – something beneath his principal, who owned barges and depots before accepting the lowly job of minister of the republic!

    Do you, dear reader, detect the hubris a la Obi? Note the phrase “imminent threat to her personal security and life following the bold steps she took to reposition the sector”; add to it the claim of inherited “baggage in terms of the concession and lease agreements in the sector, which were clearly not in the interest of the government and people of Nigeria” and the picture of what is the minister’s oftentimes misguided if not entirely misdirected activism comes revealed.

    So, for personal security, a lone, reform-minded minister would be rewarded with prized toys of two bullet-proof BMW 760 Li cars worth $1.6 million drawn from the coffers of cash-starved NCAA, cars that some say should have cost no more than $40,000 apiece! That is how to run a self-help republic!

    How about the minister’s two-pronged self-help of shunting aside the justice ministry and the police in her self-consuming messianic mission to change the face of aviation for good? How about casting herself as lone star in the cabinet of dunderheads? What does it say about self-help being acceptable when public funds are involved?

    The problem here is that the minister merely acted in ways typical of public officers who have come to see parastatals as their pot of fortune. Don’t forget, this particular minister has never been known to be a fan of due process. If you recall, she it was who jettisoned all known niceties of due process and financial regulations in pursuit of her dream of airport modernisation? Does anyone now remember her tango with aviation stakeholders over unilateral expenditure of BASA funds outside the strictures of parliamentary appropriation? Is the minister not simply treading a familiar path here?

    Now the onus is on her to explain the utmost secrecy surrounding the transaction and whether or not it was it breach of the procurement law. Clearly, Nigerians are interested in knowing the approving authority considering that the amount involved ordinarily exceed ministerial approval limits. It would be interesting to know if the purchases were done with the approval of the President or the Federal Executive Council.

    None of these of course compare with the most bizarre rationalisation by Fola Akinkuotu, the Director General of NCAA at the so-called press conference in Abuja last week. Now, the NCAA-DG does not know the cost of the armoured vehicle; yet he affirms that “the cars are operational vehicles used in the various operations of the NCAA in transporting the minister and aviation related foreign dignitaries as part of its operations”.

    Armoured vehicles to transport the minister and visiting foreign dignitaries? What rules under the IATA protocol mandates NCAA to provide bullet-proof vehicles to visiting dignitaries? What else does the NCAA chief know? Has he ever heard about ministerial approval limits? By the way, how did the NCAA pull off the transaction in the absence of a functional board? Were the processes done under the sole authority of the minister?

    I think the aviation industry is in more trouble than we can even begin to imagine.

    So where do we go from here? Those expecting a tremor will be disappointed as nothing will happen; not to a member of the Amazon-triumvirate at the drivers’ seat of the Jonathan administration. As sure as daylight, the hysteria will peter out until another expensive distraction surfaces to engage us. That’s how it’s always been. That is how it would remain.