Opinion

By Felix Oguejiofor Abugu

IN Igbo mythology, the elephant represents both size and complexity. In my part of Igbo-land (Enugu-Ezike), we are so awed by the sheer size of the elephant that we like to say that were one to cut a dead elephant into pieces or just cut off a part of it to eat, one wouldn’t even know where to start from. Nigeria is like the elephant: too big and complex for us to comprehend. Just what do citizens in this sprawling human space want?

I am part of a civilisation constantly scandalized by tales of the dizzying levels of corruption even among its torch bearers. But there is also something scandalizing about the fact that we are often only too quick to cast a stone even at the innocent, once corruption fights back wearing an ethnic toga. In this place and time, the irreverently, not to add outlandishly, noisy accuser is always right while the oft-sad, hushed and intimidated accused becomes the vile corruption enabler. While nobody expects a madding crowd to be reasonable, we cannot but expect that at least members of the so-called critical mass should be discerning enough to distinguish between the truth on one hand and falsehood and propaganda on the other.

For me, the current media hysteria over an allegation of $170m oil-bunkering and contract fraud against Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ikechukwu Ogalla, speaks to a steep decline in our collective wisdom curve. We are supposed to be as wise as the serpent. The serpent may well have become far wiser than us. How do we get corralled into this kind of hoopla time and time again?

In old journalism, there are received wisdoms we seem to have thrown out the window. One is that opinion/comments are free but facts are sacred. The other is that when in doubt, delete (don’t use): the concept of gate-keeping is that the copy editor is empowered to allow into the publication only copies that pass the objectivity, fairness, balance and factuality tests. But it’s like old journalism has since failed itself, what with its otherwise redoubtable custodians appearing to have embraced the new, I should add, ruinous tradition which now witnesses practitioners gleefully going to town with stories that have no verifiable sources. How did we arrive at this ‘first with the news’ shot in the foot, or whatever else the objective of such professional misconduct might be?

Let’s face it: no other mass media culture, even by African standards, would have gone to town with the CNS $170m fraud story. In other climes, journalism works to save the institutions of governance and civilisation; we work to destroy ours through promotion of the wrong ideals and people or, simply put, ethnic jingoism! I mean, how can journalism make sleaze seem so easy, as if it were part of our national DNA. We do contend with huge corruption issues in Nigeria, to be sure, but I refuse to accept that ours has become so porous a system and public officials so insouciant and brazen, indeed so morally bankrupt that the first thing a person appointed into a position of power, authority and influence would do on assumption of office is to dip his/her hand into the public till and steal to his/her heart’s content.

Three companies write an open letter to Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS) accusing him of frustrating their pipeline surveillance contract work. How exactly? Because, evidently, the CNS insists on adherence to stringent “professionalism and standard operating procedures” by everyone operating in the nation’s maritime domain. Days later, the same companies that obviously can’t meet the “professionalism and standard operating procedures” demanded by the New Navy for their work, turn around to accuse the same CNS of corruption and journalism simply goes haywire over the story, applauding the accusers? No questions asked, no reflection, no cast-backs?

Pray, if the companies had such a damning evidence of corruption against the CNS and were sincere about cleansing the Augean stable, why didn’t they release such evidence ab initio? Or, would they have kept sealed lips if the man had cooperated with them by letting them carry on with their pipeline surveillance work the way they deemed fit or had been doing it, that is, without adopting “professionalism and standard operating procedures” in the conduct of their business? If he didn’t cooperate with them, isn’t it obvious why they set out to shame him? Wouldn’t the bad guys, then, be those companies and their promoters? A man obviously still ‘learning’ the ropes of his assignment after his appointment barely six months ago has already so effortlessly pulled off such a huge contract fraud of almost N200bn ($170m x the current rate)? Sleaze must, indeed, be an official policy of this government for this gargantuan financial heist to have been so easily accomplished by the CNS and Co.!

But, let’s go back to the beginning. About a week ago or thereabout, a fictitious group under the aegis of ‘Ohaneze(sic) Think Tank’ issued a statement in which it slammed Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ogalla for allegedly frustrating the work of pipeline surveillance contractors in the Niger Delta. In a story recently published by operanews online, under the headline ‘Pipeline Surveillance: Chief of Naval Staff not allowing private security outfits do their jobs‘, ‘Ohaneze(sic) Think-Tank’ alleged that Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice-Admiral Emmanuel Ikechukwu Ogalla “is not allowing private security outfits contracted by the Federal Government to do their jobs.”

The group, which has kind words for the “Nigerian Army, the Air Force and other security agencies” for abiding “with the directive to work alongside the private security firms,” chided the Navy for remaining “adamant”. “Rather than support the efforts of the three security companies contracted by the federal government to keep surveillance over oil facilities, the Navy is said to be hell bent in(sic) creating impediment in their paths, just to tarnish their reputation and have their contracts revoked,” ‘Ohaneze(sic) Think Tank’ further lashed out at the NN under Vice-Admiral Ogalla.

And the group went on to disclose the three companies for which it was speaking. “The companies, Tantita Security Services Limited ( TSSL) and Pipelines Infrastructures Nigeria Limited under the supervision of Inter – Atlas Synergy, have all cried out over Naval sabotage of their operations in the nation’s waters,” ‘Ohaneze(sic) Think Tank’ said.

Now here is the fallacy in ‘Ohaneze(sic) Think Tank’s’ tale. Tantita security services Nigeria limited with head office at No1 Refivie Close, DDPA Ugborikoko, Effurun near Warri, Delta State is owned by High Chief Ekpemupolo Government, popularly known as Tompolo. Similarly, Pipeline Infrastructure Nigeria Limited (PINL) located at No 36 Birao Street, Wuse 2, Abuja, the FCT, is owned by a man named Idahosa Okunbo Wells. Ditto for Inter – Atlas Synergy which has its head office at 10 Saka Tinubu, Victoria Island, Lagos and is owned by a man named Ufuoma Eugene Omorode. The point, then, is this: None of the three companies is owned by an Igbo, not even, permit this distinction for the purpose of this write-up, a South South Igbo. None has an Igbo director either.

While there is nothing wrong in someone or group being nationalistic, even altruistically patriotic, in their disposition, I confess that I am hard put to understand why a so-called affiliate group of Ohanaeze Ndigbo would ‘lambast’ the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), an ethnic Igbo, even to the extent of accusing him of economic sabotage against the country, on behalf of companies that have practically no relationship with the Igbo. In political Nigeria, this, to all intents and purposes, would be a mirage. To make it even more unbelievable, the ‘Ohaneze(sic) Think Tank would have ‘lambasted’ the CNS for conducting his constitutional duty as the chief superintendent of Nigeria’s maritime domain as he should but not in a manner as should have gone down well with Tantita, PINL, Inter-Atlas Synergy and similar non-naval private surveillance contractors in the nation’s waterways. Does it sound logical at all?

The truth is that this ‘Ohaneze(sic) Think-Tank’ does not exist. If it is supposed to be an affiliate of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, then it is completely fictitious because one’s search, inquiries and residual knowledge of the workings of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide did not produce any result as ‘Ohaneze(sic) Think-Tank’. Meaning that this Think Tank is fake, obviously contrived by its creators for whatever the sinister purpose and mischief they set out to achieve with it. The names purported as the group’s national coordinator and deputy national coordinator are also fake. From what one knows and can confirm, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide has only one known affiliate group, the Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC). The Ime Obi Ohanaeze that many Nigerians know about is not an affiliate group but a ruling organ of the apex Igbo sociocultural and sociopolitical group. So, who created ‘Ohaneze(sic) Think Tank’ and why?

If, according to its own statement, the Nigerian Navy (NN) “has always acknowledged the coming onboard of private maritime stakeholders for the protection of critical onshore economic assets, in the sole interest of the nation’s economy, as a known development, provided (that) professionalism and standard operating procedures are upheld strictly,” isn’t it possible, then, that Tantita, PINL and Inter-Atlas Synergy were found unable or unwilling to adopt such standard operating procedures in the discharge of their pipeline surveillance contract obligations? Couldn’t this be the reason they would appear  to have been put on the spot by the new Naval sheriff, with his broom on the ready to sweep out dirt more efficiently?

It is instructive, in view of the result of another search one conducted, that PINL had much earlier been accused of incompetence by a Niger Delta group known as National Awareness Forum (NAF). NAF had actually called for revocation of PINL’s surveillance contract (and there is no smoke without fire, they say). To fight off the attack from NAF, which it described as ‘fictitious’, PINL had to use another, probably ‘fictitious’ group called  Warri Urban Security Network (WUSN), to deflect the missiles from its opponent. To a large extent, this means that PINL isn’t exactly above board.

And so, if PINL, for instance, had suffered the deleterious effect of framing, why, then, would the three pipeline security contractors, PINL inclusive, find it profitable to frame Ohanaeze Ndigbo in their face-off with the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) over their obviously failing contracts, no thanks, it seems, to their incompetent handling of their briefs? Obviously, their glaringly unscrupulous action was intended to cause friction between the CNS and Ohanaeze and, by so doing, give further, seemingly more evidential expression to the perception in some quarters that the Igbo hate one another. And I ask: is it not just possible for other Nigerian nationalities, especially our minority brothers in the South South, to fight their own wars without always trying to pull down their neighbours over the fence?

I would have thought that this underhand, ethnic baiting of a ‘strategy’ was simply too cheap, embarrassingly too immature and delusionary to help the companies accomplish their obviously pull-him-down mission and, as such, they would simply turn tail and back off. But, no, they just had to deliver the knockout punch (there are no small boys in Warri, after all), hence the unconscionable throw-in of the improbable $170m oil-bunkering and contract-splitting fraud charge against Vice-Admiral Ogalla for the tribal sharks in the media to feed on. And did they feed on the ‘story’! Unfortunately, not even dogs feed on every morsel of meat thrown at them.

Every so often, I just wonder at our capacity for self-destruction in these parts. I mean, how does it happen that we are so well-educated and exposed, so incredibly smart even as a people, yet so unbelievably poor – naive in fact – at interpreting societal events and the oft-sinister intentions that drive them? Is it that we actually regale in the mischief of shaming others, especially those not culturally like us, or that, in reality, there isn’t a critical mass in Nigeria deep enough to smell a rat from the self-serving actions of some men and or groups, and refuse to be used by such people/groups to destroy others whose actions or lack thereof may well be the rope we need to pull ourselves out of our mess?

At some point in our wobbly political walk, we must decide whether we want Nigeria or we don’t; whether we will build a nation focused on a future and mission shared by majority of its citizens or one content to be an eternal contraption (as we call Nigeria now) and pulled at all sides by centrifugal forces. Journalism will have to cast that first stone.

Culled from abeyanews

A.

-February 1, 2024 @ 15:45 GMT|

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