IFEANYI OSSAI: IKEM OKUHU AND HIS ENDLESS BABBLE

To begin with, if I had sought permission from Ifeanyi Ossai to do a response to Ikem Okuhu’s prattle, I would never have got it. After all, Mr Okuhu has made a name for himself in churning out the kind of write-ups that Wole Soyinka would describe as ‘kindergarten drivel’. The first thing I do when I encounter a babble such as the one from Okuhu is to look up the picture of the writer. Perhaps it’s small boy performing a self-drill on writing. In this case, I was looking at a wrinkled old man, who seemed embittered by his mis-spent life, and struggling to pull back his career that is hurtling into oblivion. Labour Party was the last hope to re-jig his life, and regain some relevance. That last straw of hope has also faded away. Life must really be difficult for Mazi Okuhu, for despite his bogus claims and pompous credentials, people like him are useless without the crumbs on the corridors of power. 

Let me quote a few lines from Ikem Okuhu that triggered this rejoinder. Hear him: ‘It’s nearly three months since Ifeanyi Ossai was sworn in, but the person Google recognizes as the Deputy Governor of Enugu is still Cecilia Ezeilo, Ifeanyi Ossai’s predecessor’. 

Imagine! These are the petty, zero-agenda politicians that wanted to lead our Coal City State. But God thwarted the design of the wicked.

In the South-East, there are three Deputy Governors that were sworn in on May 29, 2023: Ifeanyi Ossai of Enugu State; Ikechukwu Emetu of Abia State; and Patricia Obila of Ebonyi State. Now, let’s do a google search: Deputy Governor of Ebonyi State. What will pop up is Eric Kelechi Igwe. Please don’t take my word for it; do the google search yourself. Eric Kelechi Igwe was the Deputy Governor to David Umahi, yet his name still crops up today as the Deputy Governor of Ebonyi State. Let’s go further than that to ask google: Who is governing Ebonyi State now? What does google say?  Engr. David Umahi! It is the same situation in eighty percent of the cases, with respect to the new Governors and Deputy Governors.

Mr Okuhu concedes that Ifeanyi did amazing work in trying to rally support for PDP during the campaigns. That is very true. In fact, a quick google search will display some of his speeches and pictures. Folks, just take a minute to search: Labour Party Deputy Governor Candidate of Enugu State. Zilch! Please do the check yourself, and declare me a liar if I am contradicted. No presence anywhere! By the time, you search John Nwokeabia, what pops up is the picture of his birthday, and bits of irrelevant information. 

So, Enugu Labour Party had already invisibilised their deputy even while the campaigns were still on. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. With all due respect, if I chanced upon Dr John Nwokeabia the next day, I would be hard put to recognise him. He was scarcely in the picture. There was never a synergy between the two candidates. They were just two strange bed-fellows hustling for office. Till today, no Enugu man or woman has heard or seen the Enugu State Labour Party Manifesto. Indeed two have to agree before they can work together. It was all cacophonous noise. Peter Obi saw through all their gimmicks, and turned his back on them in the nick of time.

Chimamanda Adichie said ‘we remember differently’. In the same way, people come to office with different priorities. Some are just content to have their pictures plaster all over the place. For such people, the impressionism of power is much more important that the real business of governance. For someone like Ifeanyi Ossai, however, the campaigns are over; it is now governance, and it is real work. 

On July 20, 2023 I flew on the same aircraft as Ifeanyi Ossai. I was headed for the US; he was headed for National Economic Council meeting (NEC) in Abuja to represent the Executive Governor of Enugu State. It was at that meeting that NEC reviewed the ₦8000 subsidy palliative, and re-routed a more robust intervention through the states. 

There is a software known as web crawlers that actually crawls the web to find pages to add to the index. If Ifeanyi Ossai had bespattered the web with pictures he took with other Nigerian Governors at the NEC meeting, Google would have indexed the event with his pictures emblazoned all over the place. He did not. As I said, what motivates people to seek political office is different. 

Before I left the country, I stayed close to Ifeanyi Ossai for several weeks. I saw at a close range the stuff he is made of. I witnessed him hold several bilateral meetings with international agencies at the instance of the Executive Governor. Have you seen any of the pictures on the internet? 

The Deputy Governor is on a different wave-length. His stamina for work is awe-inspiring. He could sit from 9am to 8pm poring over documents with nothing except cashew nuts by his side to keep him going, and he can sustain the same energy level till the close of work. 

He is like an iceberg. What he puts out about himself is just a tip of who he is. Someone has actually described him as a submarine that operate beneath the surface. I consider that an apt metaphor. For example, if Ifeanyi Ossai did not become a public figure, many of us would never have known that his Real Estate Business extends as far as Europe, and that his investment in Oil and Gas is huge. He abhors showiness and flamboyance.

Anyone who has the slightest degree of expertise in discourse analysis would be conversant with what is referred to as the unsaid of an essay; that is, what is not overtly expressed, but which is actually the real message. Ikem Okuhu is a job-seeker. He has primed himself to jump ship from Labour Party, and he is surreptitiously trying to warm himself into the PDP fold. Let me explain.

His first attack on Reuben Onyishi is nothing but a juxtaposition of himself and Reuben.  He sketches the erudite Dr Reuben as an incompetent member of Mbah’s team, and signs off with a tribute to his own achievements. Essentially, he is saying Reuben is not good, but I am and here is the evidence. Isn’t it smart of him? A self-advertising loud-mouth. All na hustle!

The hypocritical essay on the distinguished Ifeanyi Ossai is a sequel to the first: a desperate bid to draw attention to himself. Again read between the lines. The basic message to be distilled is that Labour Party in Enugu State has accepted the inevitable and moved on. The litigation is an exercise in futility, and it is time to abandon the electoral merry-go-round and begin to oppose governance itself. Let’s all welcome them to reality.

It was Alexander Pope, an 18th century English essayist, that remarked thus: ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring’. Okuhu is a man intoxicated by little learning, so irritatingly braggadacious. Those who knew him in his school days describe him as a wind-bag, full of noise with less than average intelligence. If his friends hoped that age would temper his cantankerousness, it is unfortunately not the case. He actually deteriorated with age.

Okuhu reminds me of Thomas Shadwell in John Dryden’s ‘Mackflecnoe’. Dryden portrays Shadwell as a man ‘Who stands confirm’d in full stupidity’ and as one who ‘never deviates into sense’ and without ‘a lucid interval’. He sums him up as the ‘last great prophet of tautology’. How else would you delineate an old man like Okuhu, who squanders so much energy in a longish essay and ends up passing no message? His wandering pen should steer clear of Ifeanyi Ossai, otherwise he should gird himself for a long-drawn-out pen-gymnastics. 

Enugu State Labour Party calls to mind the myth of Tantalus in Greek mythology. In fact, the word ‘tantalise’ is derived from that myth. It basically translates to desiring something that will forever remain unreachable. Lion Building will continue to tantalise Ikem Okuhu and his band of opportunist politicians, but that hallowed edifice will always elude them. Mark my words!

Dr Hyginus Eze