By Ebere Wabara
IT is only in Nigeria that wretched people entangled in asphyxiating poverty go into politics and become billionaires overnight without any scruples. And, unfortunately, our convoluted society acquiesces in such rogue opulence as the official bandits constipate with their loot.
In the same breath, men of financial muscle with transnational investment pedigree and entrepreneurial aplomb are haunted by our warped system, where erstwhile presidents played and still play with the absolute magistracy of authority and power-drunkenness. This explains the intractable trial of the former governor of Abia State (1999-2007), Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu.
I have pointed out innumerably that Kalu’s financial antecedents and other profiles of his cannot be compared to most of those who persecute him or display amnesic ingratitude. Biting the hand that fed us has become a systemic way of life in this part of the world. I am not going to mention names in this sphere for reasons that border on principle and professionalism.
Ever since Kalu disabled, politically speaking, Mr. Eziuche Ubani, the current Commissioner for Works in Abia State, from going to the House of Representatives for the first time before he finally went at the completion of Kalu’s tenure as governor of Abia State, Ubani has never seen anything good in Kalu. This is quite understandable if not taken to the currency of preposterousness.
Ubani owns a radio station based in Aba, Abia State, which goes by the name Magic FM. The medium became operational not too long ago. Since its establishment, all it does is to attack anyone opposed to the immediate-past governor of the state while he was in power and even now. Issuing from that same prism, the charlatanism and unprofessionalism that have characterised the radio station have naturally been transferred to the present administration in blind loyalty and sycophantic brazenness.
During the 2015/2016 elections and senatorial rerun in the state, the station was unleashed on all opposition forces in a manner that contradicted the usually dispassionate disposition of its principal proprietor, well, up to the point of his journalism sabbatical before venturing into politics that almost got aborted by Kalu on grounds of strategy because Kalu saw the bigger picture.
The first victim of Magic FM was Dr. Alex Otti, the dispossessed APGA governor of Abia State, whose case was worsened by judicial corruption at appellate and apex levels. All through the intervening periods of litigation and appeals, Magic FM indulged in media trial and carried on as if it had divine mandate to undermine the upturned victory of Dr. Otti, who has left everything in the hands of God’s ultimate court.
After dealing with Dr. Otti, the next person for assault was Dr. Uche Ogah, who is awaiting the Supreme Court’s revalidation of his mandate as the rightful PDP governor of Abia State. Once he had a routine invitation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over a slight business partnership disagreement and which was addressed swiftly, Magic FM went to town that Ogah had been arrested and detained by the EFCC when indeed he was invited to elucidate on a complaint and, thereafter, left within a twinkle. Politics has really vitiated professionalism, especially with the audaciously salacious tendencies of frequency modulated stations.
On Monday, October 31, 2016, a routine appearance of Kalu at a Lagos court at the instance of the EFCC was made a political swan song and an oppositional anthem by Magic FM all through the day with its usual stupid innuendoes, mass deception amid public gullibility, bovine indoctrination and utter disregard/disrespect for the cherished codes, ethics and dictates of broadcasting. It was so bad that my phones were inundated with calls from Aba all day over the Magic FM propagandist asininity, falsehood amplification and deliberate mischief.
The owners and management of this gossip station should know that there has been life after ocheonwu, euphemistically called ochendo. There would also be life after Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu sooner than later when the apex court reinstates Dr. Ogah, inevitably. Beyond the upcoming judicial intervention, what happens to Magic FM when, eventually, the present administration in Abia State quits and Hope takes over? It is better not imagined both for the proprietor and his “official” megaphone.
Shortly after the case came up for mention on Monday in Lagos and was adjourned to next month, Kalu left for Abuja where he is right now in his Aso Rock home unperturbed by the ludicrousness of any magical station that will end up like other jaundiced official mouthpieces deployed in witch-hunt and proprietorial vendetta.
Providence has made anything involving Kalu to be a newsworthy item, but mischievously misrepresenting issues and offering them in pedestrian nursery rhymes for public consumption smack of juvenility!