By Sogbeye R.J.Douglas (for Team: wikekalabari2023)
'Iyama Kalabari, o seki, seki moro'
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In mass communication, there is the framing theory of propaganda. This theory is a calculated subterfuge; intelligent and deliberate twisting of statements and Actions of a public figure, opposition, an institution or a perceived enemy to make his or their intended meanings the exact opposite in ‘black’ semantics; to project your veiled dubious interest. Playing a mind game or manipulating an unsuspecting audience. It is reversionary, conspiratorial and intended to misinform and mislead the uninformed and the biased and the gullible.
All the good deeds of the target are scorned and deliberate falsehoods are trumpeted in the blogosphere and public spaces to malign and project the little misdeeds of the intended target. During the Odili tenure, a journalist with his Beacon newspaper perfected this art of public relation. It’s the art the CNN is playing against Donald Trump. During the second world war, Goebbels, Hitler’s information king pin used this model to hoodwink and incite the German nation into a despicable brand of nationalism and sentimental euphoria to frame six million of his nation’s Jews into the gas chambers to become human barbeque. When you negate and malign the target (victim) you veil your intent and project your selfish interest as if it is the public narrative, group interest or an extant nationalism. The Kalabari pseudo opposition mob is engaging in this type of diabolical misinformation nationalism against Gov. Wike. The foolish and the biased easily fall for this type of con mass communication tomfoolery.
A Kalabari army of disgruntled ingrates parading as petty opposition politicians have coalesced into an army of ingratitude bent on painting Gov. Wike and all that he stands for in negative light. I have never seen a man more vilified by an irate mob of trollers, selfishly intent on mischievously selling its selfish and pecuniary agenda in the veil of opposition politics as our general good. Agreed, opposition politics in Nigerian is never constructive and debased. But there must be a limit to every evil. If we are not careful, this cleverly veiled conspiratorial pattern of public relation stunting to frame Governor Wike for a hanging will jeopardize our 2023.
In the above case, the evil is the imminent inimical consequence of their unfounded propaganda of falsehood against Gov. Wike as a collateral damage to our Kalabari Guber2023. Before this irate mob and their undiscerning listeners and social media followers wail ‘crucify him crucify him’; Let us count our few blessings from Gov. Wike and thank God and him for them; Gov. Wike must be a political Zarathustra. I have found it too difficult to clairvoyance his omniscience political wisdom in appointing a Kalabari secretary to Government when there is a kalabari deputy governor and in doing this he dropped an Ogoni secretary to government. Ogoni is a key and distinct political block in Rivers State politics that cannot be side stepped. In his position, I will not dare a likely political consequence of this magnitude. But he risked it all for our sake. For this agape political love for us, do we allow few misguided miscreants parading as Kalabari supremacist facebook nationalist to vilify and troll this man of love and put asunder what God has put together- The team Wike/Kalabari 2023? Kalabari land his awash with Gov Wike’s signature projects. And our 2023 is a project in the making. His dredging projects for Abonnema, bakana, Abalama are receiving due attention, the Abonnema ring road is eighty percent complete. The secondary school in Abonnema has been upgraded to polytechnic level even when we cannot generate the required student population to occupy it. When you project his little omissions, count the so many blessings God has used him to bestow on us and improve our quality of life. The trans kalabari road is going to be on the front burner after the flyovers. All we need is patience and solidarity to stand with Gov. Wike in his project strides for Rivers State.
Recently, Gov,Wike made the inclusive statement that any section of the state can produce the next governor. Is there any truism more apparent than this? That the right to aspire to the governorship is inclusive of every section of the state. This statemanly comment was made a sing song out of proportion as a Freudian slip to elongate upland and ikwerre political hegemony not on the riverine people but the kalabari people as if Gov Wike should have stamped a Kalabari patent on guber 2023 before his Ikwerre ethnic nationality on the occasion of their civic reception for him. If we so desired the governorship of Rivers state, what did we do with the opportunity in1999 when it came knocking on our door? We stand with Gov. Wike on this statement. Interested parties should vie on egalitarian bases and horse trade with each other. Though, the argument that the riverine as the upland in 1999 be blessed with an affirmative action to produce the next governor make some sense.
At an earlier part of this year a group of political jobbers in plying their vain glory, packaged a charade and sold a dummy to Governor Dickson of Bayelsa state. The organizers of this event were hurriedly after the deep pockets of Dickson. Other matters of security, protocol and tradition were said to have been side stepped. Why should Gov. Dickson at the twilight of his tenure develop appetite for a kalabari tradition and title? And why spite or contempt his opposite number Gov. Wike of Rvers State? As a political pundit, I can risk a conjecture that the answer is in the political geography of St Barbara or St Bartholomew; to excise Kalabari territory and oil into Bayelsa state. Dickson is a political smart Alec proactively reading the future, of the impact a supreme court judgment will have on ‘St. Barbara Vs. St Bartholomew in Kalabari land should those oil wells and territories be excised and awarded to Bayelsa state. Building a rickety bridge of friendship across the St. Barbara and St. Bartholomew was Dickson’s strategy to pacify frayed nerves should we lose our oil wells and territory to him. Dickson did not come for our title- he was only offering us a cap to take our neck. His veiled targets were the Amayanabo’s kingdom and his oil wells. He came to feel the tempo and read what reactions will be and the best way to mitigate it. Dickson was ‘the spy who loved us’. And nobody saw through his scheme until Gov. Wike blew him up for what he came for-territory and oil. Why should a governor stealth into another Governors territory if his missions are of good intention and goodwill? The judgment is out and the rest is now history. The living God has vindicated Gov. Wike and exposed the stealthy mole hypocrisy of Dickson.
Now that Dickson Buguma 2019 is a debacle; the embarrassment to King, Kingdom and Governor and rivers state has been trolled out of proportion by the neophyte Kalabari social media mob to frame Gov. Wike as an implacable Visigoth intent on a Punic war to despoil our royalty and palace while they and ‘Dickson’ are the knights- protectors of the realm.
In the Buguma fiasco and Gov. Wikes reaction, are history and classics; a clash of civilization between modern European enlightenment inspired political thought weaved into civic constitutional government and the decimated edifice of our traditional institutions. Since the fall of the monarchies and the institution of constitutional authority, there have been envy and trust issues between them. See Gov. Ganduje Vs. Emir Sanusi in recent time.
Traditional institutions and civic authorities are in perpetual internecine conflict for
political and economic space- this is what led to the trade, politics , abduction, exiles and the Punitive expeditions you read about in colonial Niger delta. Just look at Dicsons actions in the light of an intrusion into a trade route without trade rights. Gov. Dickson and his handlers intruded on Gov Wike’s constitutional space. It is quite regrettable that His Serene Majesty came in the firing line. The governor did not scape goat or denigrate the symbol of our traditional institution for the impetuous sins of Gov. Dickson. Far be it. That gathering of Kalabari chiefs was the best opportunity and most appropriate forum to bare his mind and complain about the territorial travesty of Dickson and his handlers.
It is a classical truism that both institutions- State and tradition are – Titans in an epic struggle to control mortals, so occasional frictions are unavoidable. It will be preposterous to unnecessarily dabble into the complicated relationship between state and tradition with caustic social media comments against any of them. Propose a divorce and see if they will not ally to resist you.
Even the debate and trolls the above issue generated centered on power, supremacy, territory and politics- areas that are very conflict prone. The challenge is how do we insulate traditional institutions from politics to avoid future rile tirades and vituperations borne out of genuine anger against clandestine intruders? Nobody in our modern history has contributed to the prestige of our traditional institution more than Gov Wike. Thus the opportunistic and predatory mob labored in vain to use this opportunity to pillory, smear and defame the good image and character of Gov. Wike. I am worried because in addition to the embarrassments to state and tradition, our hope in Guber2023 is daily being diminished by the misadventures of few misinformed miscreants toying with our collective destiny in 2019. Gov. Wike shares our vision in 2023. That is the reason he had brought the wall so close to us to cure us of our malignant political myopia to see his hand writing clearly on the wall for 2023. A few spontaneous bruises with our tradition should not be allowed to bring our 2023 into further altercation. This is the time to make State and tradition to unite, to focus on our vision. We should not use our social media comments to distract and divide them further.
Gov. Wike announced to Rivers’ people that he was going to keep his campaign promise to build flyovers to ease traffic and abet the ease of doing business in the state. The kalabari infantile politicians ranted that why is Gov. Wike not building flyovers in the kalabari local governments? They in the process of trolling the governor slung mud on our Ikwerre brothers whose votes are very vital to our 2023 for rallying with their son.
During the Ikwerre ethnic nationality civic reception, an opportunity to showcase and sing his project mantra to his people- his primary constituency, to demonstrate to them that charity begins at home. Key project showcased with its derivable were the flyovers. They were flaunted as a political promised fulfilled. But to our chagrin, Gov. Wike opined that his reductionist distractors reduced the multiplier impact of that grandiose project as a special ethnic gift to his Ikwerre people.
To shame this immitigable and chauvinistic idiocy is to satirize its uncouth duplicity with the traditional ribaldry commonly used to mock ingrates in our traditional semiotics. Ntooooor- means shame to my detractor and long lives the Ikwerre ethnic nationality, long live Rivers State, Long live Nigeria and God save us from unfounded distractions. Ntoor, Gov.Wike did not invent ntoor. Ntoor is a pristine epileptic to derogate the classical ‘Lotus eaters’-those who saw power and luxury (opportunity in politics) but forgot their history- their yesterday their today and their tomorrow. When the fate of retributive justice comes knocking for missed opportunity, we satirize their parodic exposure in semantic idiosyncrasies and gesticulation as a way of imparting the meaning of poetic justice against future inertia and self forgetfulness. Ntoor to us is a wakeup call to his distractors- those who will eat the lotus leaves with our tomorrow and would not build flyovers to follow and surpass his project footprints should the opportunity come knocking for them to build flyovers. We are singing the praises of those who did not build flyovers but haranguing the one who built flyovers? That is not fair.
Ntoor was not directed at any person or ethnic nationality. Rather intoor ended with a projects compliant promise of more flyovers should he have the time and money. The flyovers are our common wealth devoid of any ikwerre hegemonic intents. The flyovers are open to the world without conferring any special economic and political advantage on his Ikwerre ethnic nationality.
The Kalabari petty opposition derogation mob immediately domesticated ntoor as a construct in vile political semantics ranting for deliberate aversion to projects in Kalabari land. The idea is to portray Gov. Wike as a project or infrastructure jingoist or selective humanist -one who never builds grandiose projects outside the territory of his Ikwerre ethnic nationality. This method of misinformation and deliberate distortion of fact is easily dispelled by the facts on ground. An uplander, Gov. Peter Odili conceived the Andini-Opobo unity road. That road would have gone the way of any other abandoned project. But Gov. Wike made it a priority project and completed it. The Riverine governors never built any road to link any of the islands to Port Harcourt but the Opobo –Andoni unity road and the Abonnema ring roads easily exposes the lie that Gov. Wike is a project and infrastructure chauvinist.
No politician can be acceptable to everybody or satisfy all the many spectrums of the political divide- that will lead to crisis of satisfaction where nobody is satisfied. Let Gov. Wike have is opposers. He is a politician. If an opposition cannot be constructive, it should not be obstructive, distractive or mislead our Goodwill and General will. Already we have a team, compact and inseparable – Team Wikekalabari2023. The governor through his body language, his many good deeds to us- ‘positioning – nearness’ has simplified our vision2023 and given us the advantage to build upon. All we need do is key into his body language for the derivable- the Guber2023, consolidate our mandate for the pursuit of modernity, of a collective destiny and history. Vilification will truncate this mandate of history and destiny if we don’t stand up as a people to speak against the vilification of our governor. A section of us is engaging in petty opposition and the politics of self immolation- when you waste yourself on an unworthy course.
Again, this nihilist brand of politics embodied by our social media trollers and criminal maligners as petty opposition; by the vagrants and dregs of our humanity as a social media pre occupation is a dangerous precipice. We must rise to defend our vision our Kalabari and if that means defending Gov. Wike. So be it.
So far Wike and his people are our greatest asset and ally. We must cultivate them to our political advantage. In Gov. Wike we have the rare personal quality of fearlessness, bravery and courage. He has an enormous arsenal of political resources- The GDI, the PDP, party organization and party discipline and cohesion. He has his Ikwerre people solidly behind him and they have the votes.They have Obio-Akpo. We don’t have Obio-Akpo. Since 1999, we have worked for them. This is their time to take us along in political magnanimity and affirmative action.
N/B: DISCLAIMER: This social media mob doesn’t speak for nor represent kalabari in idea and deeds in any way. They are out cast in kalabari main stream politics and political thought. They are miscreants and disgruntled imps sponsored to rant, troll, frame and cast aspersions on Gov. Wike to water down his appetite for a kalabari 2023. They are fifth columnists sponsored by our enemies to distract and obstruct our believe in Gov. Wike and our Guber2023. They don’t speak for nor represent kalabari. Please discountenance their activity(s) wherever you come across them
Secondly, the issue of walking sticks and phones at the government was purely security measure by Gov. Wike’s security staff for the security of our chiefs. We are told Gov. Wike also depends on such routine security instructions for his own security. He depends on his security staff for his personal security. Occasionally, they also give him orders on security and safety to comply with. We were not aware of the security information at their disposal. Let us not for political gains over romanticize simple security and safety instructions given for the general security and safety of our chiefs.
The issue of dropping phone and walking sticks when going into meetings with the Governor is a usual security protocol which has been there even when Amaechi was Governor.
Only recently the Ikwerres, Ogonis and others visited the Governor and the same security Protocol was observed. So why do we make it look as if it is about Gov. Wike against Kalabari.
-KALABARI ELDERS STANDFAST WITH GOV. WIKE
