Time is something no one has time to waste. It is short in supply, central to man’s calculations and so difficult to manage.
Who then would like to manage creeps in our midst and still find time to manage time?
Nobody! Creeps are unwanted distractions. In comparison, time is everything. Time determines what we do and how we do it.
Creeps are like scavengers. They are so creepy, nobody ever wants creeps creeping around.
It doesn’t matter how high they are able to climb life’s staircase, creeps will always be creeps. Being persons who can do just about anything, they are usually without sustainable principles.
The well being of others with whom they coher doesn’t matter in any way in the estimation of creepy minds.
Creeps simply think what matters most is their personal interest, and what they can possibly take home after a day’s hustling in which matters of conscience had no role to play.
If you imagine that creeps are guided by a pragmatic instinct, you’d probably be wrong. They are mere opportunists who are incapable of deep reasoning.
They are men and women who have no sense of decency; who think name calling is an art, and back-stabbing, a norm. Such persons are chatter boxes who have no capacity for dealing with solid or constructive arguments. And no place in their heart to contemplate solutions that may help change society.
So when egg heads fly high, tinkering with ideas that guarantee equality and justice; ideas which are able to lift man and his society in the direction of libertarian principles; and ideas which encourage man’s respect for man as he pursues a spirited quest for development; these creeps go so low.
Such is the world that we inhabit that men have learnt to tell themselves lies in order to survive. As a result, the class of men who qualify as creeps are unable to look into a mirror most of the time, out of a morbid fear that they may be unable to recognize their own faces!
I had received calls whilst last week’s Viewpoint was on, on Silverbird Radio. They were calls from concerned citizens who were worried by the slant of the conversation on radio, and the invectives that the very diminutive one, Hope Ikiriko wasted precious time on.
It would seem, as many journalists hold, that killing the messenger instead of the message put out there for public consumption, was more important to Hope than the substance that was before him.
Hopelessly, Hope made remarks such as “one Ogbonna Nwuke”, “one imposter” and “the man who claims to come from Etche” to buttress an argument he could not sustain. We will return to these in a moment.
The issue was whether Governor Nyesom Wike as Governor of Rivers State was right in suspending elected local government chairmen.
All Hope Ikiriko and his friends who were in the studio that morning, seemingly to speak for ALGON had to do was speak to the real issue.
I am certain listeners, anxious to know something new, especially about constitutional issues, hocked onto the programme. There were obviously thousands of them which included me.
Segun Owolabi, anchor of Viewpoint did what he knows best, rolling out questions which were begging for answers.
On air, they alleged that the APC and one Ogbonna Nwuke were crying more than the bereaved. They even alleged without any proof that the intention was to stir crisis within the PDP. How could references to the Constitution amount to stirring trouble?
We do not need to repeat what the Constitution says about public participation in the affairs of government. Our statements have long addressed those.
It is however instructive to note from the comments made by Hope in a rather hopeless and bizarre fashion, that the suspension of ‘elected’ chairmen put in place by the people through their votes was a matter for the PDP to deal with alone.
True Democrats should speak truth to power. That’s the expectation of millions of our people. That was equally the expectation of those who listened to Viewpoint last Saturday.
In saying the move made by the Governor was correctional, was the action taken by the Governor constitutional?
A constitutional lawyer was on air on Tuesday on Treasure FM. Hope and his associates need to have heard stuff from a qualified lawyer who spoke to power and spoke sensibly to the aberration that took place at Hope’s correctional centre.
Hope equally needs to hear from the Civil Society Organization in Rivers State. These speakers who have laid their minds bare on issues are not politicians. They are not even members of the APC.
I have had the benefit of seeing the live streaming version of the interview and public reactions to what Hope and his colleagues said in the Studio. I hope that Hope would go back and see the reactions from the people.
I similarly trailed the reaction of the audience when the issue first became a major headline considered on Nigerian Info, another radio station in Port Harcourt. Hope should also consider if public reaction was in favour of his jaundiced position.
Let me yield a little to Ben Eke. Eke spoke like a lawyer in defending the action of the Governor, relying on Section 64, sub section 3, of the Rivers State Local Government Law, No.5 of 2018. Like Hope, he ran away from the issue of what happens when a law made by a State is inconsistent with the provisions of the constitution.
Hope was rather pedestrian and guttural.
Bereft of any ideas, Hope described me as “one Ogbonna Nwuke”.
Ogbonna Nwuke had cut his teeth several years ago as a journalist, Current Affairs commentator and one of the anchors of Spotlight on Radio Rivers. Nwuke had anchored Guber 92, edited Nigeria In Restrospect and Around the Rivers State. The name Ogbonna Nwuke, outside politics, has long been a household word. And when it was time to leave the service of the Rivers State Government in 1993, Nwuke built a reputable newspaper that was a must read from 1999 to 2007. The records are there for anyone to see. They are not empty claims.
Hope should point at his contributions as a professional either in building a visible career, or contributing to the development of Rivers society before clinging to politics as a third rate politician.
Unlike Hope, we did not get into politics as back stabbers. We were not raised, going by the nature of our political evolution, in the art which encourages us to look for what to say demeaningly of others in order to taste relevance. Ideas got us there.
So what point did he think he was scoring when he referred to Ogbonna Nwuke as someone who claims to come from Etche?
The man in question served as a Commissioner in Rivers State. He was screened as a Commissioner in respect of a slot meant for Etche. He represented the Etche Ethnic nation as a member of the House of Representatives. His father, a First Republic politician was the First Black Provincial Commissioner for Port Harcourt Province before the British lowered the Union Jack. Nwuke’s father was a member of parliament and a Minister in the 60s. Hope may not know about these. He may also not know that Nwuke’s father was the Onye Ishi Etche and Ogbuzor the Second of Okomoko, meaning royalty is involved somewhere here.
Did Hope imagine that he cast any doubt on the birth and origin of Rt. the Hon Nwuke? Did he imagine for a second that he roundly insulted Nwuke by so doing?
Those remarks coming from a neophyte simply shows how parochially hollow, how horribly shallow his thoughts were. Wake up man! You just missed the train!!
Hope didn’t deserve a dignified response. Somehow, he now has one. It should be a reminder that we are probably waiting at the last bus stop.
When Hope was named by his parents, they probably had strong hopes that Hope who carried their wishes of hope would grow into a respectable and decent being.
They had hoped that Hope would go through school and hoped that school would go through him. They had hoped that Hope would grow up to be a man of great virtue. The Hope who spoke that day on Viewpoint may have failed to display any element of self respect and integrity.