By Ochereome Nnanna
GOVERNOR Henry Seriake Dickson of BayelsaState is worried about the activities of rumour mongers in his state.

Feathers were ruffled across the ever-nosy social networks in particular when the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Daniel Iworiso-Markson, announced that the governor had decided to set up what he termed: Rumour Management Committee, to “find a permanent solution” to the “disturbing trend of incessant rumour mongering in Bayelsa State”, with the government or its officials being the prime targets.

Even before the much anticipated Committee gets to work, Governor Dickson had personally made a fine example of a civil servant, named as Akpoebi Ifidi. The governor announced his suspension for “making careless statements” about his administration. It is also on record that Dickson’s immediate predecessor who was booted out to pave way for him, Chief Timipre Sylva, had also considered rumour such an important issue as to appoint one of his kinsmen as Special Assistant on Rumour Mongering (please don’t laugh!).

The first reaction that settles on any curious and inquiring mind is: why is rumour such an important issue in BayelsaState? I can hazard a guess or two. But first of all, let me observe that rumour or gossip is a natural part of every human society. Rumour is nothing but unconfirmed or unsubstantiated report. Everybody engages in it. Nobody can claim he or she has never started a conversation with the usual signature intros of gossips or rumours such as “have you heard..?”, “can you imagine..?”

In fact, people engage in rumour-mongering as a pastime or as a tool to lubricate their relaxation activities. That is why some people; including big shots in society buy gossip or “soft-sell” publications to read at their leisure times, even though some try to hide them from view. They want to know what’s being gossiped about their friends and enemies, including themselves! In fact, there is no serious Chief Executive or decision maker (including Governor Dickson and his predecessor Sylva) who does not cherish an opportunity to get “useful information” from the rumour mills. Close confidants of leaders are nothing but people who supply them with interesting, “quality” rumour. Leaders value rumours because they know that the saying: “there is no smoke without fire”, is generally true.

However, excessive rumour mongering is rampant in environments where the income or sustenance for the majority of the population comes from one major source rather than a diversified variety of sources. This is common among those states known as “civil service states”, where the government treasury is the primary source of income for the elite, the middle and lower classes alike. A friend who used to be a political appointee in Imo State (one of the “civil service states”) once told me that the moment a cheque amounting to more than five hundred thousand naira (N500,000) is okayed for payment in the Accountant General’s office, everybody would hear about it in all the major beer parlours in Owerri later that same day.

Bayelsa derives 90 per cent of its income from the federation account, a large sum of which comes from the derivation principle tied to the oil resources of the state. Every major player in the state; from civil servants to politicians, youths, elders, traditional rulers, ex-militants and what have you, is a “stakeholder”. It is for this reason that there will always be one dominant political party in states like Bayelsa, with “opposition” political parties invariably reduced to “parastatals” of the dominant, ruling party.

Secondly, since most of these “civil service states” do no have a large section of their indigenes dependent on economic activities outside those of government, there is a lot of spare time which is invariably spent on idle talk. Idleness and laziness give a lot of room for rumours and gossip. Most non-indigenes in a “civil service state” who have to struggle for their livelihood outside the direct windfalls of the government treasury hardly have time to participate in the rumour-mongering.

Rumours, by their nature, also thrive in atmospheres of secretive activities in public office. Usually, when there is a lot of opacity and secretiveness, there is also corruption. But when government conducts its affairs openly and with eager readiness to account for every action taken, rumours become irrelevant. One governor that has used open and frank strategies to beat back the spectre of rumour mongering is Governor Chibuike Amaechi of RiversState, Bayelsa’s next door neighbour.

I am strongly of the view that Governor Dickson is starting a wrong war. Setting up a committee to fish out rumour mongers will only eventually lead to persecution of the governor’s perceived enemies. This committee will not bring friends for the governor. It will bring only enemies, and it will be the one arrogating to itself the right to define for the governor whom his enemies are. Being a lawyer and a former federal legislator, Dickson should know better than to believe it will be possible to prove the charge of rumour mongering against individuals. It will be difficult to gather the credible evidence to secure conviction.

Rumour mongering is not solved with the use of a sledgehammer. That is military mentality. Setting up a committee to “fish out” rumour mongers is military mentality. You waste a lot of public resources, inflict a lot of needless pain on hapless citizens and end up achieving nothing.

I am wondering what the ten political appointees manning information and media for Dickson actually do to justify their positions. There is no greater “rumour management committee” than these chaps if they know their onions. They are supposed to advise the governor and assist him in administering information creditably to the public with a view to minimising rumours.

Dickson should also consider opening up the Bayelsa economy to reduce emphasis on government as the primary source of income for indigenes. People who are busy and profitably engaged in their farms, private businesses, markets and factories will have very little time to gossip about real or imagined money being shared in government offices.

There is no other way of fighting rumour mongering than through transparent, accountable, good governance.