“Oil may run out, liquidity may dry up, but as long as ink flows freely, the next chapter of life will continue to be written” With this quote from Alex Morritti, the Impromptu Scribe, for the umpteenth time, I am constrained to write about the interest of Owelle Rochas Okorocha in Trumpeta newspapers. The last time I laboured to scribble something about the Imo State Governor interest in the Owerri based newspaper, where I function as a co-owner and top editorial Chief, was when he devoted a considerable measure of time, during a press parley he had with members of the Imo State chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, to discuss about the tabloid with bias for south east market.
Having greatly observed that Okorocha may have distorted view about the role of the media in a democratic setup, once again, I am bound by strong persuasion to comment on his recent throw back to the Trumpeta newspaper.
No sooner than a publication of Trumpeta touched the newsstands, on Thursday December 14, 2017, pernicious tackles started landing on the doorsteps of management and staff of the newspaper.
Though, the reactions of Government House, Owerri can be described as a mechanical let out of accumulated pent up anger, exceeding grudge and quantum animosity from his administration against Trumpeta, it creates doubts of Okorocha is an exponent of democratic principles which brought him into power as the Executive Governor of Imo State a record second time.
For record purposes, the governor whose administration gave traders at the New Market on Douglas Road, Owerri Friday, December 15, 2017 deadline to vacate the premises already marked for demolition, surprisingly visited the market where most traders are dealers in auto spare parts. The newspaper as part of its responsibility to inform the public gave an account of what it observed from the angle of the aggrieved traders.
Apparently resentful of the choice of the headline carried at the cover page, that reads “Okorocha Escapes Mob Attack From Traders”, it didn’t waste Government House, Owerri an hour to send its lawyer to the medium. According to Eddy Onyema &Co, the law firm as solicitors to the governor, claimed that the account of Trumpeta was not only “false” and “malicious” but “maliciously fabricated not only to malign and disparage our client, but also calculated to incite the people against our client and cause fear and alarm to public and engender a breach of the peace”. The grouse of the governor was Trumpeta claims in the report that there was an attack against him by traders at the New Market, Owerri, “with stones, pure water sachets and other dangerous objects to the extent that the governor and his army were forced to retreat and scamper for safety”.
In view of the above, the lawyer demanded from Trumpeta an immediate retraction within 24 hours of the letter or the governor, according to the letter endorsed by Chief E.O Onyema, as principal solicitor “shall be constrained to take further steps permitted by law to hold you accountable for the said offensive publications”.
Perhaps, part of the “further steps” permitted by law, the governor employed was his inability to wait for 24 hours he demanded in the lawyer’s letter for a retraction before going further to display power hubris of dragging the publishers to the Department of State Security Services, DSS, Imo State command. While the courier that delivered the letter from Okorocha’s lawyer to Trumpeta management was about to vacate the newspaper’s corporate affairs office in Ikenegbu area of Owerri, the phone message unit of the three publishers, including yours truly, beeped, to announce an invitation to the DSS office; no thanks to a petition from the number one citizen of Imo State. Even when the 24 hours mandate given to the medium to give an official response was yet to elapse, Okorocha approached security agencies to probably deal with the newspaper owners.
The question is; what is Okorocha’s grouse for the collabo attack on Trumpeta? Lawyer and the DSS at the same time! There is no difference between what the lawyer wrote and the petition written to the DSS, grapevine information has it, was signed by the principal secretary to the Governor of Imo State, Dr Paschal Obi.
The remarkable injunctions enshrined in the petition is that Okorocha only wanted the DSS grill and further hold the publishers responsible over the issue of the fire outbreak. The governor’s letter asked for Trumpeta to be quizzed for allegedly being an accessory to the fact of the New Market fire outbreak because of the prompt manner it published the incident. Also, the petition asked the secret police to go further and inquire from the publishers about the demolition of the market, the newspaper claimed in the report, has started when government bulldozers was yet to start demolition of the structures.
It amounts to spurning decency and manifestly illogical for an elected office holder, who is exercising the mandate of the public, to demand for persecution of a medium who wrote an account from the perception of the people. What Okorocha failed to know is that Trumpeta did not accuse him of any misdemeanor in the report. The account of what happened obtained by the newspaper was that of the traders and efforts were made to reach his choleric Chief Press Secretary for their own side of the story. But till date the media unit is yet to give an account of what transpired at the New Market, Owerri except for ambush text messages to the Trumpeta publishers, that speak volume of his need for psychiatric test.
Government House, Owerri needs to know that it’s only where elective dictatorship thrives that objective reports from newsmen are stifled and journalists oppressed. It’s unfortunate that a seeming innocuous report, the newspaper, acting under section 22 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, carried is considered “offensive” by the present administration in Imo. Except Okorocha intends to enter the record books as a despot in the Nigeria democratic system if he goes ahead with the new trend of events in media relations, he needs to revisit the aspect that guarantees the fundamental Human Rights provided for under chapter IV of the 1999 constitution as amended, which amongst all include “Right to Freedom of Expression and the Press. Section 39 of the constitution states “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including to hold opinions”.
One also expects Okorocha to avoid certain pitfalls that sold away removed age long President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugade, as a dictator. Before he departed the Zimbabwe State House, Mugabe threatened to sack his Deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa because his wife Grace Mugabe was booed.
Reports have it that some rallygoers heckled Grace Mugabe, chanting at her “you know nothing” and “you are too junior” as the First Lady spoke before a section of the crowd that broke into a popular local song “oyenzayo sujaizonda” which translated to “we hate what you do”. Though she shouted back at the hecklers; “if you have been paid to boo me, go ahead, I don’t care, I am powerful”, It didn’t stop the husband, Mugabe to threaten sack of the VP, in what was described as a case of “transfer aggression”.
One also expects Okorocha to employ a deserving demeanor to soak challenges before his office as the executive governor of Imo State, especially now he has a year plus to go and poised to get an anointed successor. I wish to remind His Excellency that he is not the first prime political office occupier at national level and across the globe report of such incident trailed their functions. Few months to the 2015 general elections, students of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Osun State, South West part of the country, were reported to have hauled stones and sticks to the then President, Goodluck Jonathan, in company of traditional rulers and politicians of the Yoruba stock on his way to attend the Yoruba Unity summit organized by the committee on Yoruba Progress.
Jonathan as the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces didn’t deploy security operatives or best lawyers in the land to go after media houses who published the story, even as the President of the students union government of the OAU, Isaac Ibikunle later described the report as falsehood in its entirety.
In August this year, former Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomole, as carried by several media houses was allegedly disgraced at a colloquium organized by the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, at Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Abuja. For only declaring that those agitating for restructuring were those who lost out in the 2015 election, he was booed. Oshiomole did not write the DSS or ask a lawyer to prosecute the media houses who wrote that Oshiomole was booed by stating that “Before the former labour leader could finish his speech, the entire hall went noisy with many calling on him to drop the microphone and get out”.
Beyond the shores of Nigeria, several reports of prominent world leaders getting a sour bargain from the public are abound but yet non advocated for crucification of the medium that informed the public except for those with elements of schizophrenic policy.
On the final day George Bush waved Americans bye from office, the international media had several captions like “Boos for Bush as former President waves goodbye to Washington and tells Texas it’s good to be home” .Has the Imo State governor forgotten in a hurry that Bush also has a trademark of experiencing shoe-throwing, or shoeing experience from the public? Who did the former American President drag to famous CIA for interrogation over the report.
What of the incumbent American President, Donald Trump whose motorcade in Florida was attacked when two objects including a rock were thrown at him as he travelled to his Florida Mar-a-lago retreat from the airport? Protesters had gathered at an intersection in West Palm Beach when the objects were thrown. So, how many Attorneys at Law Trump deployed to jail the media outlets that carried the story?
I have no intention to bore readers with several cases where leaders face tantrums from the masses on the streets, but I had expected a recent August visitor to Imo State and a supposed international political ally of Okorocha , Jacob Zuma of South Africa, to inform the number one citizen of the state that leaders should have the appropriate mien to deal with reported cases of boos and stone-throwing. Zuma would have also told Okorocha that it is not unusual for an elected leader to receive jeers or hauled items from the masses since he was heckled and booed by some sections of the crowd in front of tens of heads of State who were in the country for the memorial service of Nelson Mandela few years ago. Again, in one of the parliamentarian sittings in South Africa, unprintable names were named after Zuma in his presence by Hon Malama, yet nobody died. The lawmaker walked away free. Irrespective of the shameful act which was a national embarrassment to South Africans because it happened before several heads of States, Zuma who has a controversial statue to his credit and a road named after him in Owerri, courtesy of Okorocha, did not hold the various information units who reported it in the jugular for daring to give the story an attention for public consumption. I will use the words from Kenneth Eade (the sipy flies) to intimate His Excellency “our democracy depends on an informed citizenry to survive, Your Honours. Besides the advancement of truth, science and morality in general, the freedom of the press is a backbone of democracy. It exits to keep the government transparent, and the human instruments of government honest.”
Since Trumpeta management has done more in terms of responses to the vagaries from Government House, Owerri, I guess the petition writer to DSS needs to be properly examined for asking the security agency to investigate the newspaper for alleged knowledge of the fire outbreak because of the “prompt” publication. The petition writer, a privileged office holder in the office of the governor regrettably failed to inform the DSS to also invite and investigate the State owned Orient TV and Radio station as a suspect in the New Market, Owerri fire outbreak. Before the Trumpeta edition hits the newsstands on Thursday, a broadcaster in Orient Station and government employee in the Igbo section of the electronic medium, named Edna Amadi, had gone on air to announce about the fire outbreak by asking relevant fire fighting agencies to race to the area for a remedy.
One of the so called “offensive” report was that the newspaper noted that demolition has started in the market when government is yet to bulldoze structures in the market. But the petitioner, who may be suspected to have been carried away by his cozy surroundings and paraphernalia of office failed to realize that while the traders were indulging in the eviction exercise, they removed vital items like zinc, ceiling, iron doors and windows holding the structures thereby turning the market like a war-torn environment. The petitioner needs no soothsayer to alert him that demolition has started in the market. What of the earth moving machine that came to dig gutters to block access roads into the adjourning roads to the market from Douglas? What sign does it portend?
I will not end without letting out one fascinating quote of DaShanne Stokes, a human right activist and writer who states that “Fascism thrives in obscurity and darkness”.
Wishing all readers Merry Xmas and Happy New Year in Advance.
