Guardian

WHEN the reputable The Guardian Newspapers dedicated its daily back page column for Rise Youthspeak, I saw the innovation as a welcome development and unprecedented; an opportunity for the teeming youths in the country, who have no such opportunity before now in any print media in the country, to discuss and analyze critical leadership and governance issues affecting the country. Since then, I have been following articles on the page and it has been quite interesting, factual and constructive.

But two recent articles published on the page were lacking in facts and figures, and they gave impression that the column is gradually being hijacked by hatchet writers of politicians who disguise as youths to deceive the public and feed them with misleading information. The articles were published on Friday May 24, 2013 with the title “Amaechi’s Plane: Where is the governor’s immunity?” and on May 27, 2013 with the title “Governor Orji and Foreign Trips”, They were written by one Odimegwu Onwumere who claimed to be an author/poet. In both articles, he claimed different location as his residence. But that is not the issue at stake. The issues are the misrepresentation of facts that were embedded in the articles by the writer, obviously aimed at achieving some hidden objectives, forgetting that such facts are bare and verifiable by Nigerians.

On the article, Governor Orji and Foreign trips, it is important to note that since his election as Governor of Abia State in 2007, Governor Theodore Orji and his Enugu counterpart, Sullivan Chime could be assumed as the least travelled or travelling governors in the country today. Governor Orji is neither a globetrotter nor a junketer as Onwumere wanted the world to believe. He has always been around in the state most times attending to the urgent need of governance, which he was elected for. Of course sometimes, he travels out of the state briefly to attend to issues that are of importance to the country and the state. Onwumere’s wrong impression about Governor Orji was due to his lack of knowledge of the working of governments at all levels, and his open rabid hatred for Governor Orji apparently because of Orji’s political fallout with his predecessor in office who happens to be Onwumere’s benefactor. Before now, the same Onwumere has been on the blogs, Internet, online media and newspapers with several articles in favour of Orji’s predecessor in office and against Orji, his office, government and family members. Such hatchet jobber should be monitored closely before he ruins the beauty of the back page column The Youthspeak.

To put the record straight, Orji’s recent visit to Canada was on the Federal Government delegation led by Vice President Namadi Sambo alongside other selected state governors, on the invitation of the Nigerian Ambassador to Canada, Chief Ojo Maduekwe for an Investment and Trade Conference. Orji used the opportunity just like his other colleagues to interact with Nigerians in the country, especially the indigenes of the state whom he appealed to come home and invest in the state. Upon his return, he was received by his people in the state. There was nothing so wrong in the visit. Before then, he had visited U.S. on the invitation of the management of John Hopkins University, Baltimore to deliver lecture as guest speaker in an event. These were the two trips he has made overseas this year.

On the issue of waste management in the state, the good governance team led by the Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku during their tour of the state adjudged the state the cleanest in the country today. It is clear that since Governor Orji liberated the state from the stronghold of his predecessor, the state has benefitted far much better in terms of good governance, infrastructural developments and security, thereby making it a haven for investors. A visitor to the state today will testify to the effect, but the likes of Onwumere and his benefactors have never see anything good in Orji’s government, or have simply refused to publicly acknowledge the good work.

By criticizing the state government’s luring of the Canadian investors into the agriculture sector in the state after millions of naira loan were given to the local farmers in the state, Onwumere exposed his ignorance, forgetting that Songhai farmers are in Rivers State, Enugu and other states of the federation, while Zimbabwe farmers hold sway in Kwara State. But such development did not stop the governments of the above mentioned states from empowering local farmers by giving them loans because the more the merrier.

In his article on Amaechi’s plane, the writer laboured to portray the Federal Government, particularly the Presidency as a hater of Amaechi by grounding his plane, but he never cared to look at the aviation rules and regulations allegedly flouted by the Rivers State government in operating the aircraft in the country. To him, as far as it has to do with Amaechi and the Federal Government, the government is wrong and Amaechi is right because he is a sitting governor with immunity. What has immunity as enshrined in 1999 Constitution as amended got to do with the flouting of aviation rules and regulation? To the best of my knowledge and the rest of Nigerians, immunity only protects sitting governor or president from being prosecuted, while in office. The likes of Onwumere and others who are not necessarily youths, but politicians’ hatchet writers should be monitored before they abuse the column.

• Otagba an undergraduate, wrote from Port Harcourt.