By Oguwike Nwachuku

RECENTLY, I read an opinion piece written by the publisher of a local tabloid based in Owerri. The summary of the opinion is that the author used it to seek attention. I want to believe he got the attention he badly craved from his audience. The initial idea was to ignore the author based on his confession that we are friends, including the governor; but realising that he was on a deliberate mission to undermine the integrity of my principal, Governor Hope Uzodimma, his government, and his officials, it became imperative that his audience be fed with the right information. Those who read between the lines will come to the sad, but factual conclusion that all he wasted his time lamenting in nearly 2000 words was that Governor Uzodimma, with perhaps his government, has not given him attention as publisher and stakeholder in Imo State, perhaps the way those who ran the affairs of the state before now did. Whatever that means! 

Putting it in the language an ordinary man would understand, he was weeping that the governor is not carrying him and the journalists in Imo State along. Unfortunately, he knows that the crocodile tears were a big lie. The publisher is not just a card carrying member of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, he has always been an official of the PDP at the national and state levels. In Imo State, where his political godfathers and benefactors hold sway, he sees himself as part of the opposition PDP fighting the government of the day dirty to wrest power from Governor Uzodimma. 

As a publisher, he publishes and writes from the perspective or bias of his benefactors and not necessarily based on his professional conviction or training as a journalist or publisher that he professes. The journalism profession that every trained practitioner, including yours sincerely, knows of is noble, and that is to the extent that the sanctity of truth must at all times be upheld, at least by the practitioners. Facts, we were taught in journalism school, are sacred and regarded as the basis upon which the believability or otherwise of the journalist’s report rests. The popular refrain or maxim: if you are in doubt, leave it out, remains incontrovertible. Anything to the contrary is balderdash, hogwash, hearsay, unfounded rumour, false, fake barefaced lies. 

Sadly, my friend, chose to travel that route to get to Governor Uzodimma, his government and officials. I don’t think we will be doing him any good deodarising his mischievous intentions under the cover of a journalist, a publisher, and an acclaimed stakeholder. It is incomprehensible that he sees Governor Uzodimma as his friend, yet subjects him to such covert blackmail. The truth remains that Governor Uzodimma has met and addressed Imo State-based journalists several times since assuming office. Twice he met with them at the Sam Mbakwe Exco Chambers and twice, also, during the annual media award/Christmas celebrations interactive session with the whole journalists in Imo State at the Banquet Hall. Governor Uzodimma did not just stop at the interaction with the journalists, he has gone a step further to institute, the first in Nigeria, the concept of Media Excellence Awards designed to encourage journalists practising in Imo. As I write, the committee for the third edition of the Governor Hope Uzodimma Media Excellence Award is ready. With the event, journalists practising in Imo State have the opportunity to win awards in the different areas in which they have competence in the course of discharging their duties.

The truth is that if the publisher lays claim to being a stakeholder in Imo State, he is by all standards correct. But the question he must ask himself is: What manner of stakeholder is he? Is he a stakeholder who lies glibly against his governor, his government, and his aides just to seek attention? Or is he a stakeholder who pays little attention to the issues that ail his state, even with his tabloid, because doing the contrary would hurt the political philosophy and calculations of his benefactors and his own personal interests? There could have been better ways for the publisher to walk himself back to the generous heart of Governor Uzodimma, since he said he has been known to the governor for years, rather than the old style recourse to media blackmail and propaganda as he did in the instant piece. Writing on “Excessive Ego” in his book – An Essential Guild to Public Speaking, Quention Schultze said: We are all valuable persons made in God’s image. But we ought not think too highly of ourselves, even if we are relatively fearless speakers. Otherwise, we might let our egos run loose.” 

I am happy that the publisher made references to the governments of Achike Udenwa, Ikedi Ohakim, Rochas Okorocha, and Emeka Ihedioha, and what happened during their days. His suggestion that the method of media relations that was deployed more than 20 years ago, in the case of the era of Governor Udenwa when few national newspapers were in existence and cell phones, Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram and Twitter, among other gadgets not playing a critical role in media practice in Nigeria, be adopted today by Governor Uzodimma, should not worry a few persons. To even make such a suggestion in relation to the era of Governor Ohakim would also amount to committing huge contemporary image making hara-kiri for the government, considering the ubiquity of media professionals, both conventional and otherwise, and the prevalence of information, communication, and technology, ICT-driven gadgets deployed by today’s journalists.Even though the era of Governors Okorocha and Ihedioha could be associated with the currency of the use of technology for media practice, there is no doubt that there is still no basis for comparison with the madness that everyone experiences today. So, why would Governor Uzodimma depend on templates that would go stale the next moment instead of devising his own, knowing too well we are now in the digital era, the age of technology, when things happen at the speed of light?

I am sure if the publisher realises that I have nearly 1000 journalists on my mailing list as CPS, with more demanding to be added to the existing list coming every passing day, he will come to the conclusion that he was actually on holidays during his era. As unprecedented as the number on my mailing list is, from day one, I promised to run an open door/all inclusive media policy, and that explains why no journalist in the country with conscience would complain of information hoarding by Uzodimma’s administration. Or are we talking about those with the right to citizen journalism using their Android phones? Sen. Uzodimma is a digitally compliant governor and has long cued into the digital era of media practice and image making, often times taking to his social media platforms to propagate his work and views himself. I doubt if that was the situation during the return of democracy when the likes of Governor Udenwa that the publisher referred to his template were in office. 

As advantageous as technology is, one of the disadvantages is that gadgets have restricted us from where we would have loved to visit physically. The publisher should behave like the stakeholder he said he was. He has nothing to gain by making sweeping statements that are professionally suspicious; otherwise, he must be prepared to have the spirit responsible for exorcizing him. To contemplate that anyone can stop the governor from seeing him or any journalist for that matter is the most wicked and unconscionable blackmail that could come from someone who says he is friendly to the governor, his government, and his media minders. The truth is that Governor Uzodimma has not changed and will not change from being the good friend he has always been to journalists. What has changed is time and space, and our failure to change along will mean a deliberate decision to remain rustic.

Nwachuku, Governor Uzodimma’s CPS/Media Adviser, wrote from Owerri