By Chief Batos Nwadike
Central to Aristotle’s concept of tragedy is the protagonist’s demise, brought about by a personal and often fatal flaw known as Hamartia, derived from the Greek term ‘Hamartanein’, meaning to miss the mark - like an archer missing their target. This flaw is evident in various literary works spanning from Homer’s Iliad and Shakespeare’s Macbeth to more contemporary narratives such as Chinua Achebe’s ‘No Longer at Ease’. However it’s crucial to note that while fate may exert an influence, the tragedy ultimately unfolds as a consequence of the protagonist own actions, stemming from their Hamartia.
Circling back to more familiar terrain, my attention has recently been drawn to a jejune ad hominen directed against my person by one Emelumba. Emelumba’s laughable attempt to take me down woefully misses its mark, and just like Icarus of the Greek mythology the orchestrator must come crashing down to earth with his poorly constructed feathers. A tragedy solely of his making as I never mentioned the name Declan or Emelumba once in my original appraisal of the Governor’s inaugural speech. Certainly like Icarus like Emelumba.
Notably, Emelumba’s kindergarten diatribe asides from been incoherent and disjointed was mostly composed of unfounded personal insults (which I will address in the coming paragraphs). It should be clear to the discerning that the faux writer having realized that he was out of his intellectual depth and range merely now resorted to clutching at straws. Yet sad impish Emelumba, while being entitled to his ‘bolekaja’ opinion is not entitled to his own facts, hence this rejoinder:
Firstly in usual sinister fashion, Emelumba attempted to debase my honest critique of the Governor’s inaugural speech (full of praise and of course tempered with forthrightness) to make me appear as being at loggerheads with HE Governor Hope Uzodinma. To a merchant of sycophancy like Emelumba, anything short of unlimited sycophancy is an attack on the Governor and a chance to spread tell-tales and lies. Emelumba and his cohorts have nothing but unlimited sycophancy to offer, and which they notoriously serve ala carte on the political dinner table. Nemo dat quod non habet. Perhaps, this explains the constant desire by Emelumba and his merchants of sycophancy to attack those of us who have made important contributions.
Yet be that as it may, in directly addressing Emelumba’s devious mischaracterizations, the assertion that the ‘Shared Prosperity’ mantra predates my involvement and is solely rooted in Governor Uzodinma’s philanthropic history is a gross oversimplification. While it’s true that Governor Uzodinma has a commendable track record of community service, the formalization of the ‘Shared Prosperity’ doctrine within his political agenda occurred during my tenure as Political Adviser to the administration.
To suggest otherwise is to ignore the collaborative effort and intellectual input that went to shaping this ideology. Leadership connotes the input and collaboration of others, be it financially, morally, emotionally, philosophically, intellectually etc.
Permit me to digress; Emelumba says he did not see me around Uzodinma and his governorship quest caucus between 2011 and 2019. Can Emelumba tell the world who was with him in the delegation that travelled to Detroit Michigan USA in 2015 to represent then Senator Hope Uzodinma at the World Igbo Congress? Also who was with him at Ohio USA at the Imo State Consultative Assembly convention in August 2017? Both of these delegations were to bolster then Senator Uzodinma’s march into government house. At that ISCA conference in Ohio, Emelumba had in the mould, reminiscent of the apostle Peter in the bible denied Hope Uzodinma when the American based Imonese put him to test by asking if Uzodinma was running for Governor since Orlu would have by then being in power for 16 years.
Emelumba in short supply of brilliance and political swag disowned Uzodinma saying ‘any day they meet Uzodinma, they can inquire from him’. What a harried and ungrateful answer to a question asked about a man who sponsored one to such a conference to launder his image. At that point, I quickly snatched the microphone from Emelumba and told the US audience that ‘Hope Uzodinma would not only run for Governor but he would be Governor’. The capacity hall went into a tumultuous ecstasy. The US audience can bear me witness. Yet today Emelumba prances around as dumb and taciturn Commissioner of Information/Strategy of the shared prosperity administration. I die and resurrect.
In 2017, Uzodimma sided with Modu Sheriff in the national debacle of who owns the soul of the People's Democratic Party (PDP). Unfortunately, the Supreme Court ceded the leadership of the party to the Makarfi faction. The Sheriff faction, which Uzodimma belonged, lost out in that political duel. After this sweeping judgement, Uzodimma and his supporters became party-less. They were not in PDP and actually nowhere! Days passed, weeks passed, and months came, and went by. No news, no information from any quarters.
The followers of Uzodimna were like sheep without shepherd. It was like five months after the judgement. I went to Abuja, and in a strategy meeting, I asked Uzodimma to come home to Imo and address his followers on the situation and the way forward. True to type, Uzodimma agreed to the advice and came. On the day of the meeting, with Hope seated, C. O. C Akaolisa asked Nnamdi Anyaehie (then former PDP state chairman) to address the audience. In political blunder, Anyaehie rose to call the audience PDP and expected the refrain of power. Rather, he got the boo of his life. The audience queried him if he was still in the PDP? Anyaehie sat down bowing his head. Akaolisa had no option but to beckon on me to address the audience.
As I rose to speak, the spirit asked me to speak in a conciliatory voice. I greeted the audience in Igbo, 'Igbo kwenu' The wounded audience roared in the acknowledged refrain 'hoooo'. I explained to them in one of my famous electrifying and unifying speech that our brother and leader Senator Hope Uzodimma is a good man who has no filling station, no hotel, nor supermarket mall anywhere in the world.
I stated that Uzodinma’s life is a life of giving and making sure that people were happy -spreading Prosperity. The speech was so well received that everyone was hugging me and refused to sit down and later broke out in Igbo worship songs. Emelumba was not there, Fabians Ihekweme was not there, and Elvis Agukwe was not there. Certainly, they would have been elsewhere gloating over Uzodimma’s judicial misfortune. That evening before I left the Omuma residence of the Distinguished Senator, he had started addressing me as Mr. Prosperity.
On 22nd September, 2019, in a piece titled ‘THE NIGHT IS LONG BUT SURELY DAYLIGHT IS COMING’, I wrote: “The fact of the matter is that Uzodinma and his studious legal team led by Olusola Oke SAN has presented an unimpecable case and no amount of technicalities can diminish it. Today as in the struggle to upstage Rochas Okorocha, majority of Imo people know their leader and are rest assured of the agenda they wish to live with which is the practical agenda of PROSPERITY.”
On 2nd December, 2019, in a piece titled ‘CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR HOPE UZODINMA AND IMO PEOPLE”, I wrote: “All said and done, the Supreme Court of Nigeria as the apex court is poised to do justice. If this is done, sooner than later, on or before Christmas, Senator Hope Uzodimma and Imo people will have a Christmas hamper gift that will take Imo state to the hill of PROSPERITY in the next four years albeit eight years”.
Now, let us drive the liar away from the foot of the tree. Emelumba claims he was with Uzodimma from 2011 to 2019 and could not find Dr Batos Nwadike anywhere. Within this time, Emelumba as a freelance media man often dug his proboscis into Uzodinma’s unsuspecting purse. He wrote and edited four books about Uzodimma. In those four books of selected speeches by Uzodimma as compiled by him, there was no mention of Prosperity as the philosophical fulcrum of Uzodimma’s politics.
Now, it begs the question if Emelumba can point out to any public statement of his where he expressly situated the Hope Uzodinma agenda with Prosperity as its’ philosophical mainstay. At the beginning of the Uzodinma administration. Emelumba went to town with now discarded ‘3R’ slogan. Emelumba deliberately refused to highlight the ‘Shared Prosperity’ mantra, knowing it was traceable to me. Instead, all government official statements, souvenirs, caps, vests etc were copiously embossed with ‘3R’.
At a time when ‘Shared Prosperity’ mantra was barely known to the public, and in the heat of the then insecurity crisis, I embarked on a tour of the 27 (twenty-seven) local government areas and inaugurated on behalf of the Governor Shared Prosperity ambassadors in each Local Government Area. These are easily verifiable facts.
To buttress his incoherence, and of course in unconsciously betraying his true intentions, Emelumba once again attempted to subsume the ‘Shared Prosperity’ mantra within the unimaginative 3R Slogan, by falsely claiming that the ‘Shared Prosperity mantra is anchored on 3R. Nothing can be further from the truth. The Governor was emphatic that shared prosperity is the philosophical fulcrum of his administration and will continue to be so heading into the next 4 years. The Governor, in his 2nd tenure inaugural address, never mentioned the word 3R for once. Emelumba must be mad with intellectual envy.
Since Emelumba has decided to bite more than he can chew, the truth must now be said. The slogan 3R is intellectual plagiarism. This was the slogan used by General Yakubu Gowon’s administration after the Biafran war to dehumanize and marginalize the Igbos. This is the slogan that birthed the insidious £20 pounds policy, and abandoned properties. As a trained historian, I tried to bring this insidious historical baggage to the attention of the Governor during my time as political adviser.
However, I mellowed down because I knew there were fifth columnists within the administration, and I didn’t want the opposition to by any means latch on to such a potent attack line. To plagiarize Gowon’s 3R and attempt to impose it as the philosophy of a state administration within the South East, is the height of intellectual travesty and shows the intellectual hollowness of the purveyors. Thank goodness, the Governor has now discarded the so-called 3R in place of the forward thinking and more encapsulating ‘Shared Prosperity’ as his philosophical fulcrum.
As between shared prosperity and 3R, it is clear that there is nothing more to be said. Ideally, having highlighted the Freudian origins of Emelumba incoherent diatribe, I would have ended this piece here and now. However seeing that the Emelumba’s feeble attempt to mischaracterize my initial piece was only a small aspect of his article, the majority of it being ad hominen attacks on me, I would take a moment to address those I can remember. Emelumba claims that to the best of his knowledge. I have never gone through a rigorous academic process.
Contrary to his assertions, when I left the prestigious University of Jos in 1982 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History, Emelumba was yet to enter the University. Once again these are easily verifiable facts. I am at loss why Emelumba would in his wildest dreams attempt to rank academic shoulder with me. Also Emelumba characterizes as phantom, the N77 million owed to me by the Imo Government for expenses made in the course of my 2 year service as political adviser.
According to Emelumba if I had such amount of money to spend I would not have accepted the appointment by the Governor. Surely the saying is true that ‘it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt’. Is Emelumba indirectly telling the world that only impoverished hungry persons are appointed by Governor Hope Uzodinma into political offices? Unlike Emelumba whose only tangible achievement as Commissioner for Information for 4 years is as reciter of government press statements and balkanization of the state chapter of the national union of journalists, I have achievements to show for the demanded expenses. For the record my salary as political adviser was about N400,000.00k.
How in the world could I have run a high office as political adviser and the political bureau with such salary and no Imprest? I worked with a team made up of young activists, lawyers, and consultants and we were on the field every day for those 2 years, marshaling the Governor’s shared prosperity mantra, all of whom I was paying from my own pocket.
Finally, let me state that Emelumba is a provincial oru-west based politician, we are not of comparable pedigree. As long as the sun shines, I remain, in history, the 5th Igbo man with the highest number of votes as a candidate in a Presidential election in Nigeria, after Nnamdi Azikiwe, Orji Uzor Kalu, Odumegwu Ojukwu, and Peter Obi. I am a heavyweight to Emelumba’s featherweight. Surely Emelumba in attempting to take me down has flown too close to the sun and like Icarus must inevitably come crashing down to earth with his badly constructed feathers of sycophancy.
*Nwadike wrote in from Owerri
*Tdpnewsng.com will not be held liable or any blame as a result of the contents of this articles. The writer is entirely liable for any misrepresentation or libelous material found in this article - Editor
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