Ndibe obi

Merchandizing of falsehood. Above all, the man was dismayed that a governor, aware of his aide’s unprovoked, inexcusable and abhorrent attack of a cardinal, bishops and other citizens, would join the said aide in giddy celebration. The caller revealed that Obienyem’s notorious motto is, “Adi acho ogu nma” (loosely translated as, “There’s nothing like a clean fight”). He said Valentine and cohorts were gloating, professing that they had “finished” Okey Ndibe!Perhaps the governor and his pathetic coterie don’t realize that it’s sheer ignorance to boast of vanquishing truth with a tissue of lies? Obienyem appears to aspire to the Femi Fani-Kayode-school of hounds. Yet, since he lacks Mr. Fani-Kayode’s intellect and language power, Valentine’s efforts end up exposing both his ineptitude and his master’s hypocrisy and lack of touch with reality.It is a measure of the depth of deception reigning within Governor Obi’s inner circle that his morally bankrupt mouth piece would embark on a malicious mission to attribute to me words that issued from their lying hearts and sick minds.Alas, that was not the only lie that Obienyem tried to sell to readers. He alleged that former Governor Chris Ngige had promised me a political appointment if he becomes Anambra governor in future. That line is so ridiculous, so tiresome, that I won’t even dignify it with a response. Both the governor and Obienyem know that I’m not – and have never been – for sale to anybody.Let’s sample yet another falsehood from Obienyem’s pen: “When Ngige illegally usurped the Governorship, [Okey Ndibe] defended him on the reason that he was building roads. [Okey Ndibe] even boasted that it was because of him that Ngige built the only road around Awka, the Amawbia by-pass, for Okey is from Amawbia.”My past and present columns are readily available online. Valentine should provide proof of any column that I ever wrote proposing that Ngige should hang on to the gubernatorial mandate he and the PDP usurped in 2003. Valentine should disclose where I ever claimed credit for Mr. Ngige’s building of the Amawbia by-pass. Put up, Obienyem/Obi, or be subjected to the

One might as well state it as clearly and pointedly as possible: Governor Peter Obi of Anambra and Valentine Obienyem, the man who runs Mr. Obi’s sordid propaganda machine, are merchants of lies. In fact, Mr. Obienyem, the governor’s Man Friday, is a depraved manufacturer of falsehood.Last week, Mr. Obienyem wrote and widely distributed a piece titled “Anambra: May God Help Okey Ndibe.” It presumed to be a rejoinder to my column a week earlier titled “High-Paid Mediocrities.” In that column, which looked at Nigeria’s laggardly pace in the Millennium Development Goals, I expressed dismay that Mr. Obi continues to sleep soundly in a state where doctors and other healthcare professionals have been on strike for seven months.In particular, I criticized former Commonwealth Secretary General, Emeka Anyaoku. Here’s part of what I wrote: “Mr. Anyaoku, who chaired the event, was content to cheer Governor Peter Obi, describing him in superlative terms. Yet, Mr. Anyaoku knows – he must know – that doctors in the state have been on strike for more than six months in a dispute over modest increments in their pay. Is it not a scandal that any government would treat its people so callously, indifferent to something as critical as their health?”I stand by that piece. Mr. Obi, who loves to inflate his meager achievements and to absolutely deny any shortcomings, might have asked his hireling to counter my point – if he was up to the task. Instead, in a response that was ordered – and even shaped – by Governor Obi, Mr. Obienyem was doubtless handicapped by his lack of argument. So what to do? In a contemptible exhibition of his facility for deception, he concocted a series of scurrilous verbal attacks on some of Anambra’s most venerable religious and civic figures. And then he claimed that I had written the insults in a column published in saharareporters.com!I’ve since heard that Mr. Obienyem is an ex-seminarian. Yet, he called the most revered Roman Catholic churchman of Igbo descent “a failed cardinal.” He called a former Anambra governor “a canonized goat;” a former Central Bank governor

Am not a Lagos indigene. He rather asked PW, the competent Irish construction firm, to reconstruct and expand the road for a whopping N2.8 billion. As Babatunde Fashola was preparing to take over from Tinubu as governor, I ran into him at Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, and complained about the poor state of the road leading to my estate. Fashola dispatched a team of engineers and surveyors to my house within days. I now have a first class road, complete with excellent drains. Hence, Unity Estate residents did not feel the devastation of the 7 July 2011 rainfall like the rest of the peninsula.Can anyone imagine how the Obi government would react to a Yoruba resident in Anambra State audacious enough to criticise the government for not extending considerable infrastructure to his place? Obi made all his fortune in Yorubaland, yet he does not tire of asking Anambra people to reject Ngige and his supporters in the Action Congress of Nigeria because, as he claims, the ACN is a Yoruba party, unlike his All Progressives Grand Alliance which he unabashedly calls the Igbo party. The ACN may well be a Yoruba party, but you can never hear that from the lips of Tinubu or Fashola. Why does the Obi group mouth APGA’s Igboness from the rooftops? Does the tiger need to proclaim its tigritude, as Wole Soyinka once said about negritude philosophy? Can APGA grow in leaps and bounds by alienating non-Igbo Nigerians from it? No wonder, ACN has been waxing stronger across the nation, but not APGA.There is a determined effort at what Okey Ndibe, the famous writer and columnist, calls systematic North Koreanisation of Anambra State. The government wants to turn the people into robots, that is, elements grossly incapable of independent thought and action, as they rely thoughtlessly and wholly on government’s relentless and energetic propaganda, the type well bereft of verisimilitude. How did the home state of Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chinua Achebe, Chike Obi, Louis Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Pius Okigbo, K.O. Dike, Ukpabi Asika, Olaudah Equiano, Mokwugo Okoye, Nwafor Orizu, etc, come to the present state? Governor Obi himself would ask rhetorically, “Is the fault with us? Or is it in our star?”•Adinuba, head of Discovery Public Affairs Consulting, wrote this article for TheNEWS magazine

His introductory essay, Ndibe argues uncompromisingly about the grand position attained by Soyinka in the arenas of world literature and justice advocacy. However, he is judicious enough to concede that Soyinka’s irreverent ethos and his dramatic acts in pursuit of justice have often put him at odds with many. Ndibe also underscores the fact that Soyinka’s readiness to combat injustice has sometimes left the impression that he is a conflict-monger, not a peace agent. The book makes clear that Ndibe admires the laureate’s mission. He writes: “what matters to Soyinka most is to safeguard the human, wherever s/he is located, from undue depredation.”As a mode of dialogue between two writers, Ndibe’s book is far ahead of the curve in conception and execution. This slim book is a treasure that combines elements of memoir, history, and reportage. Ndibe provides an inside look into the life of Soyinka in a manner that masterfully captures the enigmatic laureate’s literary, social and political engagements. In the interview section, he also invites Soyinka to part the window into his soul, enabling the reader to take a peek into the laureate’s evolution as a writer and social being, his relationship with other literary, political and social personages (Chinua Achebe, Christopher Okigbo, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Victor Banjo, Donald Trump, Olusegun Obasanjo, Atiku Abubakar, social media trolls etc), and his evaluation of Nollywood and the enterprising crop of younger writers.Ndibe’s book is brilliantly laid out in seductive prose and powerfully evokes empathy for its subject. Reading the book, one feels the resilience, strength, and growing hopelessness – if not outright despair – that underlie the current state of Soyinka’s native Nigeria.