By Oguwike Nwachuku
During the week some lousy fellows who use the social media to cause distraction and spread falsehood made the wrist watch Governor Hope Uzodimma has been wearing for years their subject of discussion.
In the warped mentality of the social media felon who initiated the post, he said the governor wore a wrist watch worth $785, 496 to Daura, Katsina State to pay homage to President Muhammadu Buhari during the recent Sallah break.
The felon thought he had broken a big story line without knowing how he ended up on the lane of foolishness.
Unfortunately, because most social media loafers are neither trained journalists nor actually know what a proper story line ought to be, they joined their ignorant colleague in raising false alarm.
I often wonder what skill or capacity lies in just forwarding or sharing any nonsense on social media as most people who say they are on social media ignorantly claim.
One thing about those stuck on social media is that they behave like the Plebeans as described in the popular Julius Caeser by Shakespeare.
The Plebeans were used to saying yes, yes, yes or no, no, no in all situations without weighing the implication of their responses.
They were always available to be used by their benefactors who considered them as commoners and not worth anything more than a robot.
So, it is understandable why those of them who initiated the wrist watch saga and claiming that Governor Uzodimma was using state money to buy watch cannot be better than the Plebeans referenced earlier regardless of their so-called education or enlightenment.
In fact, those who say that most social media adherents usually act before they think cannot be wrong.
In trying to ridicule the Governor Uzodimma, the social media goons and their minders goading them to blackmail him ended up exposing their act of foolishness, ignorance, sense of poverty and the phobia they have for the Governor.
We shall deal with these sicknesses ailing them one after the other.
First is their demonstration of act of foolishness.
It is a well known fact in the country that every political office holder is compulsorily expected to declare his/her assets with the Code of Conduct Bureau. All the assets and liabilities associated with the political office holders, including their liquidity state before assuming office are laid bay before the Code of Conduct.
Common sense would have dictated that the originators of the post on wrist watch, if they were actually serving the public interest, would have approached the Code of Conduct for facts relating to the assets and liabilities Hope Uzodimma declared with them prior to his becoming governor.
And more importantly, since they have phobia for quality wrist watch, they would have zeroed their quest on the so-called one they said the governor adorned that is giving them diarrhea of the mind, assuming something tells them that the manufacturers of the watch do so only for spirits to wear and not for humans.
Related to this act of foolishness is the second sickness which is ignorance.
What you don’t know, you should be humble enough to ask questions so that you can be properly guided? Groping in the dark can never help anyone, neither will one’s ignorance, whether intentional or accidental, lead one to the proper answer to a nagging question or issue.
It beats the imagination that some fellows just sit down somewhere and imagine that a piece of metal they saw on someone’s wrist is the one manufactured by Jacob & Co. Astronomia Sky White Diamond 18-pieces Limited.
To demonstrate what one’s act of foolishness and ignorance can do to one, can those behind the ridiculous social media post defend what they circulated assuming the Governor decides to take legal action against the act?
Beyond the two considerations above, is what obviously can be described as the third sickness or poverty mentality of those behind the story.
I am really surprised they do not know that some wares are that costly and that those who can afford them are really not in short supply across the globe.
Obviously, Hope Uzodimma that everybody knows is not the person who could not have afforded to buy whatever he delights in prior to becoming governor. He was not a poor man before joining politics.
As a reporter, I am aware that some colleagues adorn wrist watches that will make you think they are doing something untoward to acquire them.
You will look stupid if you ask your colleague why he/she chose to buy a particular wrist watch of their choice instead of using the same money for something else.
Many people have passion for one thing or the other, including passion for what they put on, be they watches, jewelries, shoes, clothes, cars among others. And they really work hard to have such things to themselves.
The way some people have passion for good wares is the way others have passion for useless things like foolishness, stupidity, idiocy, adultery, fornication laziness, among others.
The problem is that they leave their own passion, no matter how repulsive and loathsome to focus on other persons’ passion, and that is exactly what these fellows whose passion is destructive social media posts are doing.
If you are one with poverty mentality like I pointed out, your first reaction when you see good ware on anyone would be that he or she is displaying wealth and luxury or better still, adorning such items to impress people for the purpose of attracting attention.
But the shocker is that most of those who can afford such goods to put on do not even attach the type of value or importance you that have poverty mentality attach to them. What an irony!
Coming back to Hope Uzodimma, a Governor, a two term senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a successful businessman of global repute, it is insulting, to say the least, that a wrist watch which even upstart celebrities can afford, is what some lazy chaps are making an issue out of because someone may have bought them data to embarrass the governor.
A Hope Uzodimma who, more than 20 years now, was driving in a Rolls Royce cannot be likened to one who could not afford ordinary wrist watch of his choice or decide not to wear items he acquired many years ago and was used to wearing because some excitable characters will go to the social media to blackmail him for doing so.
The question I asked some reporters who approached me to comment on the matter is whether they actually had serious stories to work on or if anyone was looking for his wrist watch?
I am almost certain that no editor that is worth that name will waste his/her time on a matter they obviously know is useless and baseless.
I have been tempted to severally ask His Excellency why he stopped his usual power dressing, but something tells me to tarry a while since age has a way of playing a role in the way wise and reasonable wealthy people like Hope Uzodimma behave.
Today, you can count on the number of wears Hope Uzodimma puts on, including shoes, week in and out, month in and out. I am sure His Excellency would be laughing out reading the nonsense on a wrist watch he has won for years been made an issue by obviously misguided persons.
I watch Hope Uzodimma closely now and I know that he has seen good life, led good life, and today is no longer excited by the things people regard or take as good life, if you like material things.
Let me go to the final point which is on Uzodimma phobia.
Everyone knows that it is the same persons who have been attacking Hope Uzodimma and his government who are still on top of matters of blackmail of this nature.
Those who have been sponsoring the social media postings to malign Hope Uzodimma and his character since he became governor know too well they have nothing any more on him to use against him.
I am sorry to say that they have used all the weapons in their arsenal. The resort to the wrist watch he is wearing shows how low they have sunk in their effort to find anything to discredit the governor. But they will continue to fail.
It is on record that Hope Uzodimma does not own any developed or landed property in Owerri today and he does not make noise about it, unlike the sponsors of the social media blackmail who, either during their eight years reign in office or even seven months reign in office, went on acquisition spree as if material things of the earth were going to go out of stock.
For their eight years reign, Imo State was left in a pity and decayed state. All the so-called buildings they claimed to have erected have given way, including the roads they built. They did not only leave Imo with decayed infrastructure, the way they ran the affairs of the state left the people with decayed mindset and unable to decode what actually hit them.
It is only recently that life is being breathed into Imo people with the 3-R mantra of Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Recovery, courtesy of Governor Hope Uzodimma’s administration.
Hope Uzodimma’s government in Imo State has come to stay. As a matter of fact, his second term has already been earned with the quality roads germinating again in different parts of the state, hospitals, schools and other critical infrastructure getting the desired attention and Imo people are happy about what is going on. Therefore, the recourse to Uzodimma phobia will not work, wrist watch or no wrist watch.
● Nwachuku, Chief Press Secretary/Media Adviser to Governor Uzodimma writes from Owerri