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BY NORBERT CHIAZOR.

Columnist Sam Omatseye’s article titled “Train of Two Traitors” published in The Nation Newspaper of 20th June 2022 made a sour read.

His theme -People’s Democratic Party PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar and his running mate,governor Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa of Delta State.

Omatseye in his bitter narrative ,labelled Atiku and Okowa “traitors” because according to him,both men are standing against power shift from North to South.

A media man riding on a “train” of  quirky propaganda.Omatseye ,a mainstream journalist has written an apologia not as a concerned moralist! I had to train my eyes off the sanctimonious lines of Omatseye.The underlining fury fools no one.Not even the most gullible is beguiled. 

Omatseye works for Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s The  Nation Newspaper.The chairman of the Editorial Board must rail road all the way to gratify his master, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress APC. 

With Tinubu’s much trumpeted “it’s my turn”  refrain to eat the national cake, it becomes easy to grasps Omatseye’s gleeful prattle. Pray.With all gusto,he must garnish  his paid  game in painstaking pillory of Atiku/Okowa challenge.The hard crunch that could crumble Tinubu’s cake! A threat to the presidential hunger of “kingmaker”Jagaban, could portend trouble not only for his empire but also the subsistence of his hired hands,including Omatseye.

Pronto, perceptive observers would hence decipher Omatseye’s dilemma. Self preservation, permissible, in Nigeria ‘s harsh economic terrain. Just that he sang far beyond the limits of priced town crier. His false “train of two traitors “ wheeled in alliterative profligacy leaves much to be desired. A piece deceptive in making and laughable in lesson.

Omatseye’s characterisation of Atiku and Okowa was rather impetuous and insincere.

How plausible could one governor stand against the power of a party to make its ticket an open option?  With the dogmatic climate of the North where monolithic religion and ethnicity  had radicalized  a people to unquestionable bandwagon in voting, can a Southern ticket holder win the presidency 2023?  With the disunity and  divisive voices among the three  geo political zones  in the South, how far can a home grown candidate go?

 How come South East, touted as  preferred destination for Nigeria’s next  leadership made abysmal outing in the primaries of the  two dominant political parties?  Who and what  pushed Igbo delegates from the South East to give zero votes to their brothers at the last presidential primaries? 

Talk of  Igbo presidency in 2023, to correct endemic marginalization of the South East has been trending  among Nigerians,gaining  emotive currency. Why has Omatseye turned unyielding  in  using his pen to push Tinubu,the all powerful  “maker”  of presidents ,to enthrone a Peter Obi, David Umahi, Ogbonaya Onu or  any other Igbo presidential seeker for that matter? In frenzy deference to his boss,he  is enamoured only with Tinubu’s presidential ambition .What can be  more hypocritical and insensitive!

Omatseye is gloating that Okowa identified himself as an “Igbo man”. You cannot show or choose to a man the location of his father’s house. Okowa’s first name is Ifeanyi. Igbos would vote for their brother! 

He is pained that the Okowa administration is under  borrowings. A universal and indeed national  financial derivative not peculiar to Delta. A compelling quagmire of successive regimes, made worst by a party/government at the centre where Tinubu is  romanticised  as national leader. A ruling government with an alarming debt burden of over 43 trillion Naira ,never witnessed in Nigeria’s history 

However Omatseye,a Deltan Iives in Lagos. Let him excuse his editorial duties briefly and  visit  home to see the tremendous transformation in his native land and he would understand  better the uses and  workings of Delta finances under Okowa.

Omatseye also made baseless allusion to what he termed rift among Atiku,Okowa and Chief James Ibori ,former governor of Delta.Troubadour! Who will tell Omatseye that the three respected personalities are at peace in chummy liaison,contrary to his  propagandist smokescreen? 

Communication engagement is a noble act with its crusading and didactic properties.But it is not a license to malign in disrespectful shenanigan.  

Omatseye in his unprovoked attack on Okowa and Atiku made off-tune reference to the infamous “Watergate scandal” of 1972 against president Richard Nixon of America.What he probably failed to acknowledge is that Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein,the two Washington Post Newspaper journalists who exposed Nixon were on the side of verifiable truth not vague tarnishment  of their object of investigation. 

For a widely read veteran columnist of a national daily to remain relevant, dispassionate objectivity not sensational showmanship must dictate his calling, emblematic of ethical journalism.

Lately, in doubtful conjectures, Omatseye has been booing the golden rule. In 2013, he ran a rash and controversial newspaper article captioned “Achebe: How Come The Father Of African Literature Did Not Win The Nobel?”. He drew national outrage and condemnation for writing that the legendary author of “Things All Apart”,celebrated worldwide for his literary excellence,produced “good not great works” .Eziokwu! Achebe?

Opinions are free, facts are sacred. How unthinkable and fallacious to question the greatness of Professor Chinua Achebe because he did not win Nobel prize like Professor Wole Soyinka.

But that is Omatseye the master conjuror of inflammable words coined in the  coyish verses of  cinna the conspirator,the comical character in William Shakespeare”s Julius Ceasar.(1599).

The good thing is that Okowa is calm,very far from Omatseye’s fantasy “train”. Together with Atiku,Okowa is moving,unstoppable towards 2023, ahead of Omstseye and his fictive imagination.

Chiazor,is Executive Assistant (Media) to Governor Okowa.