By Oguwike Nwachuku
Last week, I read an opinion piece written by the Publisher of Trumpeta, Mr. Henry Ekpe. The Trumpeta is a local tabloid based in Owerri.
The summary of the opinion is that Ekpe was using it to seek attention. I want to believe he got the attention he badly craved from his miniscule audience with the barefaced lies, innuendos, animated craftiness that belied his article.
The initial idea was to ignore Ekpe based on his confession that we are friends, including the governor.
But realising that he was on a deliberate mission to undermine the integrity of my principal, Governor Hope Uzodimma, his government and his officials, it became imperative that Ekpe’s audience were fed with the right information, contrary to his underhand, mischievous, malicious and calculated subterfuge that he tried to buffet them with.
Those who read Ekpe between the lines will come to the sad, but factual conclusion that all he wasted his time lamenting in nearly 2000 words was that Governor Uzodimma with perhaps his government, has not given him attention as publisher and stakeholder in Imo State, perhaps the way those who ran the affairs of the State before now did. Whatever that means!
Putting it in the language the ordinary man would understand, Ekpe was weeping that the Governor is not carrying him and the journalists in Imo State along. Unfortunately, he knows that the crocodile tears was a big lie. I shall return to that shortly.
Let me paraphrase some of Ekpe’s claims so that we have a clearer understanding of his mindset while he wrote.
Hear him: “By the end of November, Senator Hope Uzodinma would have completed his first term as the Governor of Imo State, yet he has not met journalists based in Imo State in any interactive session…
“He had several times met with journalists from outside Imo State, but he has not deemed it necessary to have an interface with the media men based in the State he has operated in for nearly four years now…
“It sounds ridiculously incredible, that Governor Hope Uzodinma has never, for the first time, since three years, addressed Imo journalists in a press conference. How he thought that all (those) his media friends who used to parley with him in the early twenties have all left Imo State, or died is still a mystery…
“Therefore, it will be a bad record that Uzodinma led Imo State for four years and never made out time to speak with Imo based journalists…
“During the Udenwa era, journalists in the State enjoyed a lot, despite the fact that the State was just coming out from the hangover of military regime…
“It was Udenwa’s administration that introduced ‘stipends’ for journalists in the State, to at least help them offset some of their daily expenses…
“Ohakim could call the names of all journalists in the State. He invited them for every personal functions in Okohia, Isiala Mbano LGA. He was their delight because he was ever ready for any question…
“The journalists’ personal close relationship with the Governor made my job easier, since they would be hurting their friend if they published what was unpalatable and unfounded…
“Governor Okorocha, despite his ‘stubbornness’ and unorthodox ways of doing things never spent a month without interacting with Imo journalists…
“The occasions held either in the Bush Bar in Government House, his Spibat private home in Owerri, Ogboko his village home, or NUJ Press Centre, Owerri…
“During Christmas or the stakeholders meetings held every New Year, Udenwa, Ohakim and Okorocha invited, not only NUJ hierarchy, but publishers in Imo, and other senior journalists.
Not anymore. Today, journalists in Imo are not stakeholders, including publishers…
“Even the seven months Ihedioha spent in office, he met journalists in his Owerri residence once, and his Mbaise home to interact with them…
“Unfortunately, since the Uzodinma era, to see the Governor for interaction becomes a problem. Either those managing his image prefers (sic) ‘Outside Media’ or don’t want the “Home Based” journalists meet their Governor or the Governor himself don’t (sic) want to meet them…
Before we evaluate the above excerpts, it is important the readers are given a faint idea of the man Henry Ekpe.
Ekpe is not just a card carrying member of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP). He has always been an official of the PDP at the national and state levels. In Imo State, where his political godfathers and benefactors hold sway, he sees himself as part of the opposition PDP fighting the government of the day dirty, with violence and contrived insecurity to wrest power from Governor Uzodimma.
Therefore, Ekpe as a Publisher, publishes and writes from where he appears. He publishes and writes from the perspective or the bias of his benefactors and not necessarily based on his professional conviction/training as a journalist/publisher that he professes.
The journalism profession that every trained practitioner, including yours sincerely knows of is noble and that is to the extent that the sanctity of truth must at all times be upheld, at least by the practitioners. Facts, we were thought in the journalism school are sacred and regarded as the basis upon which the believability or otherwise of the journalist’s report rests. The popular refrain or maxim, if you are in doubt, you leave out, remains incontrovertible. Anything to the contrary is balderdash, hogwash, hearsay, unfounded rumour, false, fake barefaced lies, et al.
Sadly, my friend, Ekpe chose to travel that route to get at Governor Uzodimma, his government and officials. I don’t think we will be doing him any good deodarising his mischievous intentions under the cover of a journalist/publisher and an acclaimed stakeholder. It is incomprehensible that he sees Governor Uzodimma as his friend, yet subjects him to such covert blackmail.
The truth remains that Governor Uzodimma, contrary to Ekpe’s lies, has met and addressed Imo State based journalists several times since assuming office. Twice he met with them at the Sam Mbakwe Exco Chambers and twice, also, during the annual media award/Christmas celebrations interactive session with the whole journalists in Imo State at the Banquet Hall.
Governor Uzodimma did not just stop at the interaction with the journalists, he has gone a step further to institute, the first in Nigeria, the concept of Media Excellence Awards designed to encourage journalists practicing in Imo. As I write, the committee for the third edition of the Governor Hope Uzodimma Media Excellence Award is ready. With the event, journalists practicing in Imo State have the opportunity to win awards in the different areas they have competence in the course of discharging their duties.
Ekpe is aware of all these but chose to feed Imo people with lies because of his selfish political leaning and the demands of his benefactors whom he sees as political opponents to the governor, and so ready to do anything they want him to do without weighing the implications.
In all the events where the governor met with the journalists in Imo State, Ekpe had invitations extended to him but he chose not to attend, playing the ostrich with his tabloid, the Trumpeta, churning out half truths and propaganda, and at the same time, hiding under the cover of a publisher to claim ignored as an Imo stakeholder by the governor.
Regardless, the truth is that if Ekpe lays claim to being a stakeholder in Imo State, he is by all standard correct by virtue of being a former Chief Press Secretary. But the question he must ask himself is what manner of stakeholder is he? Is he a stakeholder who lies glibly against his governor, his government and his aides just to seek attention? Or is he a stakeholder who pays little attention to the issues that ail his State, even with his tabloid, because doing the contrary would hurt the political philosophy and calculations of his benefactors and his own personal interest?
There could have been better ways for Ekpe to walk himself back to the generous heart of Governor Uzodimma, since he said he has been known to the governor for years, rather than the old style recourse to media blackmail/propaganda as he did in the instant piece.
Writing on “Excessive Ego” in his book – An Essential Guild to Public Speaking – Quention Schultze said: “We all are valuable persons made in God’s image. But we ought not think too highly of ourselves, even if we are relatively fearless speakers. Otherwise, we might let our egos run loose.”
I think Ekpe allowed his ego of being a journalist/publisher run loose and that is not a good lesson those he is mentoring should pick.
I am happy that Ekpe made references to the governments of Achike Udenwa, Ikedi Ohakim, Rochas Okorocha and Emeka Ihedioha, and what happened during their days.
Ekpe’s suggestion that the method of media relations that was deployed more than 20 years ago, in the case of the era of Governor Udenwa when few national newspapers were in existence and cell phones, Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Twitter, among other gadgets not playing critical role in media practice in Nigeria then be adopted today by Governor Uzodimma, should worry not a few persons.
To even make such suggestion in relation to the era of Governor Ohakim would also amount to committing huge contemporary image making hara-kiri for government, also going by the ubiquity of media practitioners, both conventional and otherwise and the prevalence of information, communication and technology (ICT)-driven gadgets deployed by today’s journalists.
Even though the era of Governors Okorocha and Ihedioha could be associated with the currency of use of technology for media practice, there is no doubt that there is still no basis for comparison with the madness that everyone experiences today. So, why would Governor Uzodimma depend on templates that would go stale the next moment instead of devising his own, knowing too well we are now in the digital era, the age of technology when things happen in the speed of light?
I am sure if Ekpe realises that I have nearly 1000 journalists on my mailing list as CPS, with more demanding to be added to the exiting list coming every passing day, he will come to the conclusion that he was actually on holidays during his era. As unprecedented as the number on my mailing list is, from day one, I promised to run an open door/all inclusive media policy, and that explains why no journalist in the country with conscience would complain of information hoarding by Uzodimma’s administration. Or are we talking about those with the right to citizen journalism using their android phones?
Sen. Uzodimma is a digital compliant Governor and has long queued into the digital era of media practice and image making, often times taking to his social media platforms to propagate his work and views himself. I doubt if that was the situation during the return of democracy when the likes of Governor Udenwa that Ekpe referred to his template were in office.
I need not remind Ekpe of the metamorphosis that had taken place in the media industry. However, the point should be made that the earlier we embrace the digital world that is today media practice and de-emphasise so much of physical visit in the course of discharging our duties, the better for us so long as communication is flowing in all directions.
As advantageous as technology is, one of the disadvantages is that gadgets have restricted us from where we would have loved to visit, physically.
Ekpe should behave like the stakeholder he said he is. He has nothing to gain by making sweeping statements that are professionally suspicious otherwise he must be prepared to have the spirit responsible for exorcised from him.
To contemplate that anyone can stop the governor from seeing him or any journalist for that matter is the most wicked and unconscionable blackmail that could come from someone who says he is friendly to the governor, his government and his media minders. Et tu Henry Ekpe?
Truth is that Governor Uzodimma has not changed and will not change from being the good friend he has always been to the journalists. What has changed is time and space and our failure to change along, will mean deliberate decision to remain rustic.
● Nwachuku, Governor Uzodimma’s CPS/Media Adviser writes from Owerri