IN response to his piece entitled: “Anambra: The celebration of mediocrity” by Mr. Chudi Offodile, I forewarned readers that I would descend to his subjective level.

I did. Perhaps happy that with my response, and thinking that the Governor  may be coming closer to responding to him in person, he issued forth another vitriolic entitled: “Peter Obi: Integrity issues”.

He even descended lower and called his Governor unprintable names. It was the same Governor he told the world was the best thing to happen to Anambra State when he was seeking the Senatorial seat through the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA. In reacting, I will again write what I consider a fitting response. It may not be in terms of innate literary qualities, but a deserving counterpoint to a noisy, hollow piece deployed to seek attention and relevance.

Simply because he insinuated that Obi was a mediocre and I went all out to prove him wrong, he mistook that for comparison between him and the Governor. Did you read his piece and saw how he lifted himself to nineth heaven in the belief that he and Obi were being compared? How can we compare substance and shadow or bridled horses and unbridled horses?

Since this controversy stoked by Offodile started, my greatest happiness is that the Governor has so far resisted any form of temptation to cross swords with him. Obi’s action reminds us of Buddha who was once pelted with foul words by a simpleton. Buddha’s response: “My child, if somebody gives you something you do not need, what will you say to him?” The simpleton said he would advise him to keep his things. Obi has not accepted what Offodile has been desperately trying to give him, so let Offodile keep them.

From the way he has written, it is easy to decipher his motive. When Mallam Nasir  El-Rufai told obvious lies against Obi, the Governor was compelled to reply, simply because his copious use of statistics had the tendency to mislead even the enlightened that he was telling the truth.

It is not beyond Offodile to think that by writing diatribes against   Obi, he will be forced to reply him and thereafter create the impression that he is so important that the Governor replied to his piece.  After all, there is joy and a certain sense of importance in men of worth replying to peoples viewpoints.

Many years ago, Dionysius was taken a prisoner by a famous man called Artaphernes. “Can you be cheerful under this circumstance?” Dionysius was asked. He answered: “For when should I be more cheerful than now that I am about to converse with Artaphernes?”  Such is the nature of some men.

Do you imagine how Offodile would have felt if the Governor had taken the trouble to reply him?  Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu once told me the story of a friend of his father and a popular politician who, one day, accompanied them to a dinner with the then Governor-General of Nigeria.

While walking towards the gathering, the politician turned to the Governor-General and said: “I cannot take it from you! I mean I cannot take it…!” Later it was discovered that he wanted to let the people feel that he was strong and could challenge the Governor- General. This is exactly what Offodile is doing.

I am constrained to say the foregoing because I do not understand the motive behind what Offodile does. Even when Obi would not reply him, he is happy replying to those he suspect, albeit wrongly, are prompted by Obi.

Reading him, one will inevitably conclude that his write-up suffers from empty analysis, irrelevant interpolations, laughable analogies, rhetorical tricks, with viewpoints falling upon one another in contradictory confusion.

I do not want to dwell on his rubbish, but let a sentence surfeit for example. “I do not consider myself superior to Obi.” If he means what he said, then it means he must be something lower than the mediocre he equated the Governor with.

Look at how he pretended that he was being persecuted by the Governor’s media team. This is a case of a man dangerously close to confusion. Obi, as far back as we can pry into his life, has not said any foul words about anybody, it is not in his character. When most Nigerians, especially concerned Anambrarians, were condemning the nonsense El-Rufai wrote about Anambra, people like Offodile celebrated him and even went on to grant El-Rufai’s piece some measure of literary sanctity. When we responded to his lies, he branded it waste of public funds on the part of government.

If you read inbetween the lines, you will easily notice that the entire write-up was a tissue of lies. Maturity must have taken flight from Offodile for him to write what he said was bad grammar from Governor Obi. Consider what he wrote as the spoken words of the Governor: “Of the five people who have been given this award (Sun Man of the Year) before now, four of them {is} from Anambra State”. This was in 2008. What a lie from a master lie-teller! Obi was Sun Man of the Year, 2007 and not 2008. The award which started in 2003 was first won by Chief Mike Adenuga in 2003; Prof Charles Soludo (2004); Dr. Oby Ezekwesili (2005); Mallam Nuhu Ribadu (2006) and Governors Peter Obi and Rotimi Amaechi in 2007. Before him, two people from Anambra won it. So he could not have said, as Offodile wrote, that four people from Anambra had won it before him.

If proficiency in English is the measure of intelligence, all native English men would be supremely intelligent.  What this shows is that Offodile does not understand what integrity means. He probably mistakes speaking what is called Queens English to effective expression of oneself. With this, one can gauge the depth of Offodile’s logic.

Mr.  VALENTINE OBIENYEM wrote from Awka, Anambra State.