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That attack on The
Nation
By Peter Claver Oparah, Lagos
Thursday, April
24, 2008
Any one that needs convincing of how desperate and dangerous
Imo politics has sank in recent times must have come to that
shocking reality when the news of the dastardly attack and
burning of a circulation van belonging to The Nation newspaper
stable by some faceless hoodlums in the early hours of Saturday,
April 12, 2008, as it was about offloading the daily cache
of papers at its Rotibi Street office, Owerri, Imo state.
According to the report of the incident, as captured by most
national dailies, five people, armed with cocktails of fuel,
set upon the unsuspecting driver of the truck, mauled him
and set his vehicle ablaze and fled. Curious enough, they
ensured they left a trail; a careless and witless one at that.
They left a supposed poster with inscriptions that suggest
they were angry with The Trinune, another daily, which had
been in the eye of the storm in recent days for its goof on
the false arrest and interrogation of Governor lkedi Ohakim
in London for money laundering offences. How these hoodlums
were not able to differentiate between The Nation and The
Tribune is yet a proof that criminals and their sponsors operate
on a very narrow and sparse prism that gives them out when
they least expect.
The attack caught most people in and outside lmo State by
surprise but not a few people pick political motives in the
attack, given the lead the attackers generously left at the
scene of the crime. Not a few people in lmo State are persuaded
that the attack is an extension of the present struggle for
who governs lmo State.
In fact, the lmo State government has not minced words in
alluding this ugly development to its political opponents
and many lmo people believe it. But then, the target and nature
of the attack was surprising to Imo people because no one
thought that the war for the control of lmo, which susceptibly
mutated these events, would degenerate to the level where
innocent news agents would be targeted for unprovoked and
deadly attacks, of the type that happened recently.
No Nigerian thought that people would, for the love of power
or anything for that matter, go to the extent of targeting
innocent news media and institutions for the type of attack
that happened to The Nation. Nigerians in their simple-minded
and na'ive nature have almost come to believe that no one
would be desperate enough to go to the extent of staging a
deadly attack to make his point or provoke a wider crisis
that would be unmanageable and stand to reap the profit or
whatever that would arise from such crisis.
Perhaps this recent attack may assist the security agents
and all Nigerians to unravel the strings of events that happen
in Imo State in rapid succession in recent times. Perhaps,
it may assist us all to know the real truth behind the Imo
governor's recent outcry that assassins are after him. It
may help us know those that sponsored the dangerous hoax of
the governor's purported arrest, those that have continually
incited okada operators against the state government just
because they have been restricted from some four streets in
Owerri.
Perhaps, it may inform us of the activities of the deadly
speculators of political power who would spare nothing to
ensure the state is made ungovernable just because they are
not the ones calling the shots at the state government house.
Above all, the sad incident may point the way as to who is
sowing so much dread in Imo in recent times, their aims and
objectives in ruffling the peace and tranquility of the state
in recent times.
Nigerians know very well the soured relationship between The
Tribune and The leadership on one hand and the Imo State government
on the other hand since the Imo government felt justifiably
peeved that the papers allowed themselves to be used by whoever
cooked and sold the outright lie of the governor's arrest
when no fact existed to support such tendentious reportage.
They know that the Imo government has demanded a public apology
from The Tribune and The Leadership newspapers and that the
Imo government has threatened court ,actions against the papers
if they failed to issue this apology.
There is no hiding this fact and this remains a civilized,
open and objective option in a democratic setting open to
any victim of the malicious falsehood of any new media. I
heard that the papers have offered apology for that goof and
the government has let down its anger and life is gradually
moving on.
This disapproves of a deliberate attempt to hide under any
faceless hood to unleash the kind of primitive assault as
happened to The Nation in Owerri. Trying to link the deliberate
attack on The Nation with the state government’s grouse
with The Tribune provides an-important lead to whoever sponsored
the hoax in the papers in the first instance and the manner
and time of the action suggests a deliberate and carefully
plotted strategy that may still be unfurling.
It is true that investigations into this incident are presently
going on and the government has vowed to unravel the identity
of the fllons that perpetrated this sordid act. In fact, it
needs to put all its energy to Ithis task so as to throw a
better light on why the politics of Imo State is getting to
this deadly pass and painstakingly strolling to the point
where blood and limbs would be wasted in the bid to access
power.
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