Ebere Wabara
RETROSPECTION: For the first time in the annals of governorship elections in the South East, the November 18, 2017, Anambra State poll was clearly and clinically won by diligent Dr. (Chief) Willie Maduaburochukwu Obiano (Akpokuedike) . There was no protest of any sort from other candidates, monitors, observers, sundry stakeholders or the public.
Pursuant to the epochal re-election of Dr. Obiano, I had consecutively done a treble declaring his unstoppable and superlative victory.
READ ALSO: Onitsha traders laud Obiano for demolition of criminal hideouts
My unassailable convictions and unimpeachable affirmation on his pan-Anambra irrevocable success were informed by his quintessential accomplishments and holistic sterling performance in his first term. I had also, prior to his election—not the re-election—unequivocally declared that this financial management czar will beat other candidates because of the robustness and profundity of his pedigree as a transnational consummate professional.
After his re-election, I did a celebratory article entitled “If Willie Obiano had lost…” In the essay, I reaffirmed my unflinching resolution to wit: exile in Canada if he had lost! Then came the harebrained interjection below symptomatic of derangement!
Food for thought just before the pedestrian rejoinder: I was in a high court in Lagos a fortnight ago over a case concerning my principal. One of the senior lawyers profusely commended the gargantuan urban and rural road projects and other infrastructural renewals by Governor Obiano. He enthused that the link road to his village is tarred up to his compound! When IGP Ibrahim Idris was being harangued by the Senate, I did an intervention in defence of the police boss which elicited the invidious feedback below, too.
READ ALSO: IGP Ibrahim Idris versus senators
FEEDBACKS
On your article captioned “If Willie Obiano had lost…” The positions you settled for are germane, but you almost turned Sun into a political news-marketing agency for victory-hungry politicians. I have observed that you are at your best with whoever disagrees with any position dear to you. Such persons must be—to borrow your words—imbecilic, bovine-headed….
– (08185580605)
The IGP cannot do wrong simply because he is from Nupe. Your article laced with jaw- breaking grammar is a tragedy; a fruitless attempt to defend a friend with inferior argument….
– Larry (08038517960)
My comment: The IGP does not know me!
So, the question of friendship does not arise. Readers need your own fruitful and superior argument, which must be constructively evaluative.
You seem too obsessed with your unbridled penchant to defend the IGP that you failed to address core issues. The police collect money to provide security for VIPs, banks, oil companies etc. How is the money handled? Do you doubt that police officers pay to get ‘juicy postings?’ The truth is that the total money that arrives to the police nationwide is far more than N120bn yearly. Go to FSARS, anti-kidnapping and anti-cult units of the police nationwide and see the heartless stealing called bail. It is infantile to argue otherwise….
– (08038517960)
If your readers must consult the English dictionary to understand you, then you’re not communicating. Please try and communicate. Your article on the IGP must have been sponsored because the Wabara I’ve known cannot, on his own volition, settle for that.
– (08023523588)
Columnist’s response: In all my critical and laudatory writings, nobody had ever sponsored me. The moment you compromise your professional integrity, you are hamstrung on no-holds-barred pontification. Our God meets my needs immeasurably—which forecloses the quest for lucre “sponsorship”. My articles are for cerebral minds that read between the lines and are unlikely to consult dictionaries! Please accept my apologies for the inevitable hyperbolic grammaticality which is not dysfunctional communication as you erroneously believe.
Without much ado, I wouldn’t hesitate to commend your ideas, contributions and your total commitment for telling Nigerians and beyond who Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu is. I met him as a student leader in 2009 at Camp Neya. In fact, you have really defined Kalu’s charisma… .
– Eze Ikenna (08060581532)
My Daily Times memoirs: Ernest Ikoli (3)
His fondness extended to the sublime ecology of the area which he preferred to the harsh climatic condition in Britain. It is also instructive to note that the greatest source of joy to Mr. King was perhaps the idea of setting up a new venture— and not bothering about the bleak prospects of a dwindling outfit.
His perception of West Africa can best be appreciated by digesting the prose in one of his books. “You hardly ever hear a child cry in West Africa. They are a happy people and often a wise people, and what we all want is happiness and wisdom rather than cleverness and wealth.”
When the Mirror Group eventually assumed the responsibility of managing the DAILY TIMES, it was Cecil King, who understood the economic substructure of Nigeria more than any of his peers, that saw to the functional administration of the company at all levels. His newspapering prowess came to bear at this point.
King was an astute manager who never exhibited insufferable professional conceit as he condemned, outright, the obsession with foreign news to the detriment of local happenings. This was in the early days of DAILY TIMES. The need for broader coverage of local events informed his decision in sending a report to the London Daily Mirror about the extermination of 21 coal miners in Enugu in 1948.
Quite unlike his counterparts in those nascent days, Cecil King systematically ensured the civilization of the local workforce on the realization that someday, the indigenous population will continue from where the architects had breathy departure from the scene. Such schemes embraced all categories of DAILY TIMES’ human resources. It was not surprising, therefore, when, in 1974, the company became a wholly Nigerian outfit. Little wonder he is regarded – deservedly too – as the father of modern DAILY TIMES.
READ ALSO: My Daily Times memoirs: Adeyemo Alakija (2)
King share in the glory that this medium enjoys today as the most important, influential and authoritative paper in Anglo-speaking Africa. A devout Christian and an apostle of Afrocentric ideals, Cecil King died in April 1987.
For their invaluable contributions to the establishment of the DAILY TIMES, Sir Adeyemo Alakija and Mr. Cecil King, among others, will remain, perpetually, in the annals of Nigerian press as architects of journalism, in this part of the continent as Nigeria’s Liberation story is intertwined in the evolution of active journalism in Africa.
And now the first editor of DAILY TIMES: Mr. Ernest Ikoli. Without any background pretensions, the infrastructure of Ikoli African Messenger provided the plank for the rolling off of the incipient print run of the DAILY TIMES. This however, should not, in any way, be misconstrued to mean that what began as the NIGERIAN DAILY TIMES (and much later DAILY TIMES) was an offspring of the fledgling African Messenger. To be continued indefinitely