By Raymond Uweh
The first impression or cursory feeling any reader would have
had from the first paragraph of Eguono’s farrago of assumptions would have been
that the writer had something to say or had some firm grasp of the history of
the Maritime Academy of Nigeria and the surrounding communities. But it sooner
and progressively became obvious that the shadow-chasing and helplessly
misguided Eguono was just a hireling engaged by saboteurs to alter facts and
cast aspersions on constituted authorities, such that he could not have escaped
falling victim to his folly by insolently and arrogantly flouting the
principles of caution and public interest with his recent article.
It is therefore necessary we first and foremost introduce and
unveil EGUONO ODJEGBA to the world as one of the dangerous unrepentant
characters whose stock-in-trade has always been that of conspiring with the
disgruntled and mischievous elements of his kind, within and outside the
Academy, to present the Academy in bad light as one always at war with its host
communities and thereby generate tension and cause distractions. Eguono Odjegba
does this at a price. This is the best introduction to his questionable
professional credentials. The risks he sometimes takes to gratify his
pay-masters still remain a subject under serious investigation.
It is obvious that Eguono is still living in the past and
therefore is not in touch with the unfolding current realities in the Academy
and worse still, does not have the fare from his Lagos slum to have visited the
Academy to responsibly authenticate issues through interface and factual
observations. It is therefore not surprising that he read the lips of his
sponsors and descended so low as to vomit in the open without any inhibition
for the consequences.
The issues he formulated did not only lack substance but
revealed his true personality and stock-in-trade, His statement that the Rector
has been leaving in a hotel where he pays Two Hundred Thousand Naira daily
since he came clearly shows that Equono is not after facts, but on despicable
mission for character assassination which is punishable by law.
For a fact however, Equono must be told that everybody in the Academy Community
knows that the Rector lives in a house he personally rented in Uyo for the past 9 months, rent of which is due to expire on December
2018. There would have been doubts about Eguono’s source of misinformation if
not that we already know his cohort of ethnic bigots and sponsors who have
sworn never to see the Rector have any peace of mind or work without
distractions. Surprisingly, he does not know that Commodore Duja Effedua is so
focused on his core mandate and has already developed a thick skin to ward off
unnecessary ranting from miscreant journalists.
Eguono also goofed and foamed in the mouth to have said that the
Rector has abandoned a well-furnished residence meant for him in the Academy.
It must nevertheless be placed on notice that the Rector has rather remodeled
and completed the once abandoned building and allocated apartments therein to
about 20 staff of the Academy. Eguono would have known and seen this if he had
visited the Academy in the last one year rather than being spoon-fed with
falsehood that will soon purge him.
Eguono also must be educated to understand that the culture and
era of financial impropriety and wantonness had since been swept away by the
refreshing tradition of transparency and accountability in the management of
the Academy’s IGR and associated funds. That even the Staff of the Academy have
chosen to nickname the Rector as “Mr. Integrity” gives credence to his
character and administrative demeanor. So what legal matters is Eguono
referring to? It is noteworthy that this is the first time in the history of
the Academy that litigations have become readily scarce because of the vibrant
network of diplomacy that has been put in place by the Duja Effedua-led
administration..
In a chat with the Rector, he had demanded that Eguono act fast
by retracting his baseless and fabricated allegations within 24 to avoid the
lingering bad weather over his head. In addition, he must tender an unreserved
apology to the Rector and Management of the Academy whose names he attempted to
soil in his malignant concoction of lies.
From the foregoing, it is obvious that Eguono is a straying dog
of no destination. It would be recalled that not long ago, the same Eguono was
sponsored to write another unfounded article entitled::“AMAECHI USING MAN
ORON TO INSTIGATE HATE FOR BUHARI”. He therefore must have
ingratiated himself with the erroneous conclusion that he can wake and smear
anybody without consequences. It never mattered to him that since he has
been doing this over the years without any altruistic value, it is high time he
had a rethink to engage on worthy engagements that would have impacted
positively on his life.
We recall with pity how he mutilated the history of the Academy
and cast aspersions on the Ibibio, Efik, Annang and Oron people in the previous
ill-fated article. As if that was not enough, suffering from amnesia yet
claiming to be the Historian-in-Chief for Oro Nation, he proceeded to commit
yet another iniquitous crime of anachronism by stating that the Maritime
Academy was established in 1988; grievously backdating that profound facet of
history by ten full years. Established in 1977 (Federal Executive Council No.
EC (77) 172), and first known as the Nautical College of Nigeria, the
promulgation of Decree No. 16 of 1988 only facilitated expansion in scope and
mandate of the institution and never reversed or nullified its year of
establishment. Because Odjegba’s deliberate alteration of this fact worsens our
fears about his dangerous agenda and also gives stronger proof that he is on a
paid-job-mission to continue to wound the rebranded image of the Academy and
the anthropology and goodwill of members of host communities.
Again, if Equono was not psychotic and disrespectfully out to
ingratiate himself with odious lies and illogicality awkwardly aimed at
slandering and maligning the impeccable character and lofty offices of
President Muhammadu Buhari and that of the Hon. Minister for Transportation,
Mr. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, he should have known the genesis, terms of
preference, composition and destination of the Interim Management
Committee set up by the Ministry of Transport on September 17, 2017 in
statutory submission to the Presidency. Hence, he would for no reason not have
stated: “The rector(sic) is implementing a bogus interim management
committee (IMC) recommendation that Oro should be removed from the naming
nomenclature, as a way of divesting people of the host community, state and the
entire Calabar nation of future claim to the institution”.
Why is Odjegba stoking up the dead flames of ethnicity and rancor
among a naturally peaceful and accommodating people of Oron and the entire Akwa
Ibom State? Well, it nonetheless might help to inform Odjegba and his
sponsors that it was as a result of this kind of misunderstanding and drumming
of clannish interests that the Chairman of the 6-man Governing Council of the
Academy, Chief Ademola Seriki, on the Council’s inaugural visit to the Academy,
recommended that if the people continue to misconstrue and hammer on the word
Oron as a license of ownership, even as it is at the moment, it might be
expedient to downplay the locational suffix “Oron” (as in Maritime Academy of
Nigeria, MAN, Oron), after all there is only one Maritime Academy in Nigeria,
which everyone knows is located in Akwa Ibom State, just like there is Nigerian
Defense Academy in Zaria and others elsewhere. The logic is that in other
States across the country where there are Federal Government presences, people
do not behave the way some opinion leaders in Oron have cajoled their subjects
to think and behave.
It is unbelievable that Eguono in his imaginations would connect
the purely academic preoccupation of the Maritime Academy with national
politics and how Members of the Academy’s Host Communities are bound to
determine the outcome of the 2019 Presidential election by raising one
illogical question: “Does MAN Oron have the capacity to affect
Buhari’s electoral chances? Yes, to the extent that workers of the institution
have electoral franchise…and that workers could transfer their frustrations and
story of oppression to others, in such a manner so as to cause a mass
disinterest for the president re-election bid”. Can you imagine!
What is Eguono’s source of data? What percentage of the Academy workers’
votes accounted for President Buhari’s victory in 2015 in a country of
approximately 200million people? With Eguono’s kind of inflammable articles of
invectives and disrespect to the person and office of Hon. Chubuike Rotimi, it
must be admitted as a dramatic irony that he is actually the worst and declared
enemy of both the APC and the President in this connection; hence, the need for
relevant security agencies to be alert of his hidden motives.
Eguono expectedly also fumbled by trying to question the
composition of the Management of the Academy. Why did he not mention the total
number, names of the principals, their offices and states of origin to have
discovered that three of the principal officers are core indigenes of the area?
What then could be said to be the populist benefit of his accursed report? He
then chose to deceive himself by hiding under an alibi to say that all phone
calls to appropriate authorities to clarify matters proved abortive. Can a
reporter of contemporary time who wants to make a mark say this on a matter of
serious interest to him? Why then was he in a hurry to publish than wait until
he had gathered the flipside of his doomed adventure, a circumspection that
would have showcased his professionalism, objectivity and national interest?
This mountain of lapses simply proves his chronic laziness, competence in
beer-parlour gossip, and ingrained mischief to set fire in Maritime Academy for
the sake of money.
We therefore reach this conclusion: Eguono must be a cursed
pretender if he argues to the contrary that it is not people like him who have
been fighting all along the years to tarnish the internationally acknowledged
image of the Academy, except things were done at the personal orders and
preferences of his pay-masters.
* Raymond
Uweh, a Public Affairs Communicator writes from the Host Community of Maritime
Academy of Nigeria.
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