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Mudsling and propaganda seem to be a permanent feature of Nigerian
politics. As the political season draws near, those who are in the business of
such peddling grab headlines and feed fat. Their strategy is to create the fire
and also position themselves before the vulnerable, for consultations on how
to extinguish it. That is how it works.
The fact remains that Nigerian politics have failed to deliver development for
so long that anyone who dares to break the rule gets all the attention. He
threatens his peers and can easily be made a scape goat because of it. It is
a crime to raise the bar because that will naturally threaten the status quo.
Desperate moves will be made to tarnish the person’s image and ridicule his
achievements. Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, the Executive Governor of Rivers
State is unarguably such a leader and it is no surprise at all that any
opportunity to splash mud at him is never spared by his detractors. One of
such moves is the recent article written by one Ifeanyi Izeze, an Abuja based
media consultant and published on Sahara Reporters on the 6th of December
2011. Let me make something clear, every leader that is spending public
money ought to be asked questions. Both the author of this article and Mr.
Amaechi are strong advocates of transparency and good governance. Anyone
who knows them will attest to this fact.
However, reading the said article by Mr. Izeze immediately exposes that this
is yet another subset of a pull-him-down agenda of a disgruntled ‘consultant’
seeking attention. The word consultant appears to be the one of most
frequently abused words among the Nigerian pseudo elite, lately. Someone
told me that it is a mask for unemployment and that may be true. In fact, one
of the most convenient things to do after looking for job endlessly in Abuja is
to turn to a consultant. Media consultancies (most of them fake) proliferate in
their scores in Abuja, just as estate agents. Ifeanyi Izeze and his likes belong
to this lot. They often seen littered or loitering around aimlessly at the lobby
of many five star hotels in Abuja looking for politicians to hoodwink, cajole or
blackmail in the name of consultancy. I made a few inquiries about Mr Izeze
and I am certain that he must have attempted to play a fast one on Amaechi
without success. Amaechi will not fall for those machinations. He is not a
conventional Nigerian politician. He (Ifeanyi) must know that he is not alone.
Many people have tried that with him (Amaechi) severally and they had the
same experience. Contrary to the claims of the article, Rotimi Amaechi is not
given to profligacy. Indeed he has a reputation of being very tight fisted
especially to those who have nothing positive or productive to offer.
On the issues of armed robbery and security vote raised by Mr. Izeze, it is
important to state here that the security vote is supposed to be used by
Governors to maintain security in their states. The cases of Rivers State in
the past few weeks have been quite surprising and so I will not be stunned if a
committed Governor decides to spend a bit more to equip those in charge to
do their work and quickly reverse this trend. But as he (Ifeanyi) pointed out in
his article, it sounds like something beyond what eyes can see - really.
Agreed, Amaechi is the Chief security officer of the State but Rivers State
does not own the Police, the Federal Government does. His role as Governor,
in my view is to work with security agencies to put together a strategy and
give them adequate logistics to do their work. The robbery incidences are very
recent and cannot diminish the huge improvements that have been recorded
by Amaechi’s government. If Mr Izeze wants to be like a ‘watchdog’ journalist,
he should direct the same questions on security vote to all the Governors of
all the 36 states.
Furthermore, the fact that Amaechi has hosted several big events in Rivers
State like the National Sports Festival, Rivers State Investment Summit etc
without a single incident is indicative of the security progresses made
already. Could anyone have dreamed of such feats before 2007? Mr. Izeze’s
timid reference to anarchy is therefore both laughable and unintelligent. Apart
from his clear allusion to a possibility of sabotage, the ‘consultant’ completely
forgot that Rivers State is surrounded by other states like Abia and Imo
States. Without making definite assertions, there could be a possibility that
these hoodlums might be coming from across the borders of Rivers States.
Often, perpetrators of kidnapping in Rivers State have been traced to nearby
states. Although this does not absolve Mr. Amaechi of blames completely but
it leads a fair minded analyst to call for increased political will from
neighbouring states in the fight against criminality in the old south east zone.
On several occasions, suspicious individuals have been held at border check
points but most importantly Mr. Izeze should have raised the matter of the
state police which the Governors have been asking for. Lagos, Luanda and
indeed other fast growing cities all over Africa face similar security
challenges. Having said this, can I ask Mr Izeze to tell us how temporary and
surmountable security challenges can reverse things like quantum
infrastructural leap of the Amaechi administration? Will those roads, power
plants, world class secondary schools and health centres built by Governor
Amaechi disappear as a result of one robbery incident? Does Mr. Izeze not
know that Rivers State is the only state that is currently self-sufficient in
power generation in the country?
A few weeks ago, a British journalist visited Mr Amaechi and asked him for a
drive around the town. What was supposed to be an interview session was
almost turned to a carnival. Rivers people are happy with Amaechi and
anyone who has lived in Port Harcourt in the last ten years will have the same
confession. The results of the 2011 elections are there for everyone to see.
No doubt the interventions are far from perfect, the projects are too many and
need to be completed as soon as possible, but that is the philosophy behind
a developmental state. That was exactly the path the Asian tigers took after
the World War II. I have visited Rivers State several times in the last two
years and I cannot allow the falsehood contained in the article of Mr. Izeze to
go unchallenged. The role of the media in the expansion of the Nigerian
democratic space must be acknowledged. However, the media has also
created rooms for rag tag opportunists like Ifeanyi Izeze who go around trying
to hoodwink gullible politicians. He missed the point completely in his
attempt to mislead the public through his article. The Rotimi Amaechi I know
will not succumb to machinations and cheap black mail by a brief case media
consultant. His verifiable achievements in Rivers State remain self-evident.
Uche Igwe lives in Washington DC. He can be reached on uchigwe@gmail.com
politics. As the political season draws near, those who are in the business of
such peddling grab headlines and feed fat. Their strategy is to create the fire
and also position themselves before the vulnerable, for consultations on how
to extinguish it. That is how it works.
The fact remains that Nigerian politics have failed to deliver development for
so long that anyone who dares to break the rule gets all the attention. He
threatens his peers and can easily be made a scape goat because of it. It is
a crime to raise the bar because that will naturally threaten the status quo.
Desperate moves will be made to tarnish the person’s image and ridicule his
achievements. Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, the Executive Governor of Rivers
State is unarguably such a leader and it is no surprise at all that any
opportunity to splash mud at him is never spared by his detractors. One of
such moves is the recent article written by one Ifeanyi Izeze, an Abuja based
media consultant and published on Sahara Reporters on the 6th of December
2011. Let me make something clear, every leader that is spending public
money ought to be asked questions. Both the author of this article and Mr.
Amaechi are strong advocates of transparency and good governance. Anyone
who knows them will attest to this fact.
However, reading the said article by Mr. Izeze immediately exposes that this
is yet another subset of a pull-him-down agenda of a disgruntled ‘consultant’
seeking attention. The word consultant appears to be the one of most
frequently abused words among the Nigerian pseudo elite, lately. Someone
told me that it is a mask for unemployment and that may be true. In fact, one
of the most convenient things to do after looking for job endlessly in Abuja is
to turn to a consultant. Media consultancies (most of them fake) proliferate in
their scores in Abuja, just as estate agents. Ifeanyi Izeze and his likes belong
to this lot. They often seen littered or loitering around aimlessly at the lobby
of many five star hotels in Abuja looking for politicians to hoodwink, cajole or
blackmail in the name of consultancy. I made a few inquiries about Mr Izeze
and I am certain that he must have attempted to play a fast one on Amaechi
without success. Amaechi will not fall for those machinations. He is not a
conventional Nigerian politician. He (Ifeanyi) must know that he is not alone.
Many people have tried that with him (Amaechi) severally and they had the
same experience. Contrary to the claims of the article, Rotimi Amaechi is not
given to profligacy. Indeed he has a reputation of being very tight fisted
especially to those who have nothing positive or productive to offer.
On the issues of armed robbery and security vote raised by Mr. Izeze, it is
important to state here that the security vote is supposed to be used by
Governors to maintain security in their states. The cases of Rivers State in
the past few weeks have been quite surprising and so I will not be stunned if a
committed Governor decides to spend a bit more to equip those in charge to
do their work and quickly reverse this trend. But as he (Ifeanyi) pointed out in
his article, it sounds like something beyond what eyes can see - really.
Agreed, Amaechi is the Chief security officer of the State but Rivers State
does not own the Police, the Federal Government does. His role as Governor,
in my view is to work with security agencies to put together a strategy and
give them adequate logistics to do their work. The robbery incidences are very
recent and cannot diminish the huge improvements that have been recorded
by Amaechi’s government. If Mr Izeze wants to be like a ‘watchdog’ journalist,
he should direct the same questions on security vote to all the Governors of
all the 36 states.
Furthermore, the fact that Amaechi has hosted several big events in Rivers
State like the National Sports Festival, Rivers State Investment Summit etc
without a single incident is indicative of the security progresses made
already. Could anyone have dreamed of such feats before 2007? Mr. Izeze’s
timid reference to anarchy is therefore both laughable and unintelligent. Apart
from his clear allusion to a possibility of sabotage, the ‘consultant’ completely
forgot that Rivers State is surrounded by other states like Abia and Imo
States. Without making definite assertions, there could be a possibility that
these hoodlums might be coming from across the borders of Rivers States.
Often, perpetrators of kidnapping in Rivers State have been traced to nearby
states. Although this does not absolve Mr. Amaechi of blames completely but
it leads a fair minded analyst to call for increased political will from
neighbouring states in the fight against criminality in the old south east zone.
On several occasions, suspicious individuals have been held at border check
points but most importantly Mr. Izeze should have raised the matter of the
state police which the Governors have been asking for. Lagos, Luanda and
indeed other fast growing cities all over Africa face similar security
challenges. Having said this, can I ask Mr Izeze to tell us how temporary and
surmountable security challenges can reverse things like quantum
infrastructural leap of the Amaechi administration? Will those roads, power
plants, world class secondary schools and health centres built by Governor
Amaechi disappear as a result of one robbery incident? Does Mr. Izeze not
know that Rivers State is the only state that is currently self-sufficient in
power generation in the country?
A few weeks ago, a British journalist visited Mr Amaechi and asked him for a
drive around the town. What was supposed to be an interview session was
almost turned to a carnival. Rivers people are happy with Amaechi and
anyone who has lived in Port Harcourt in the last ten years will have the same
confession. The results of the 2011 elections are there for everyone to see.
No doubt the interventions are far from perfect, the projects are too many and
need to be completed as soon as possible, but that is the philosophy behind
a developmental state. That was exactly the path the Asian tigers took after
the World War II. I have visited Rivers State several times in the last two
years and I cannot allow the falsehood contained in the article of Mr. Izeze to
go unchallenged. The role of the media in the expansion of the Nigerian
democratic space must be acknowledged. However, the media has also
created rooms for rag tag opportunists like Ifeanyi Izeze who go around trying
to hoodwink gullible politicians. He missed the point completely in his
attempt to mislead the public through his article. The Rotimi Amaechi I know
will not succumb to machinations and cheap black mail by a brief case media
consultant. His verifiable achievements in Rivers State remain self-evident.
Uche Igwe lives in Washington DC. He can be reached on uchigwe@gmail.com
By Uche Igwe
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Ifeanyi Izeze and briefcase Journalism
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Examiner.com. Please avoid abusive, vulgar, racist or rude words. Our
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