Re: Imo: 90 days of nothingness

By Remmy Mbagwu

I read the above-titled article by Kenneth Uwadi with relish. It made quite interesting reading for the singular reason that Uwadi appears like a budding prose stylist. I must commend him for his nimble way with words.

But style without substance is hollow; it’s like a well-dressed beautiful damsel who’s lacking in gumption. Style that is lacking in depth is actually dangerous and must be eschewed.

Let me quickly puncture Uwadi’s lazily and languid lies in his “9o days of nothingness” before I graciously offer him a brief tutorial on the need for acuity and delicate balancing in public affairs commentary. Of course, the entire article suggests that Governor Emeka Ihedioha has done nothing in 90 days of his tenure. A howling fallacy.

First, Uwadi stated categorically that he didn’t support Emeka Ihedioha during the governorship election. His entire narrative also suggests he didn’t support Ihedioha in 2015 as well. This explains an unveil animus. It will be interesting to know who Uwadi supported in that crowded field of popinjays and pygmalions. Ihedioha stood like a giant in that crowd as reasonable people can see.

If Uwadi tells me the guber candidate he supported, I will immediately profile the poor character he is made of.

Prose dressed in lies and half-truths remain naked. Uwadi states that the results of the election bear no relationship with the reality of the peoples votes…

It is either that he is not an Imo man or he is induced to write fiction by the losers. Every Imo person will testify that soon as the result of the last guber election was announced the entire Imo erupted in utter joy and there was celebration through the night. Uwadi tries to dress his lies in a large babanriga; Emeka Ihedioha was clearly the choice of Imo people both in 2015 and 2019.

Uwadi talks glibly about 90 days of nothingness, of lies and blame game and unpaid pension, on and on.

I wager that Uwadi is either starkly uninformed about activities of Governor Ihedioha since May 29th or he is too compromised by his paymasters to be able to think properly; or both.

But quickly, for the benefit of Uwadi and his uncaliberated cohorts, Owerri, nay, Imo is much cleaner. For 90 days, Ihedioha’s ENTRACO has been clearing an 8-year-old heritage of garbage left by Okorocha. Drains, channels and waterways silted for 8 years are being opened. Taps in Owerri are runnig again as otamiri Water Scheme has been fixed; a roguish pension regime bequeath Imo people by Okorocha is almost turned around; workers salaries jumbled for 8-years has been carefully sorted out and normalized.

The Dan Anyiam and Grasshoppers Stadia are being refurbished after complete decay under Rochas… the list of quality achievements is too long for this short rejoinder.

But the most cynical lies by Uwadi which gives him away as a paid-pen is the claim that Governor Ihedioha is rebuilding his personal homes as well as building a hotel in 90 days. The truth is that expansion of his Owerri home and the hotel project had been going on long before the 2019 election. Would a man stop his personal projects just because he won an election?

Finally, public commentary is a serious and indeed sacred trade; albeit the craft is peopled by wayfarers and charlatans not unlike Uwadi. Many today actually make a living purveying falsehood, blatant lies and paid-for-propaganda in the guise of public opinion. Again, not unlike Uwadi.

It is perverse; a dehumanizing evil, to use Uwadi’s terms. But in this case, a purveyor of deliberate falsehood dehumanizes himself more than the public he seeks to deceive.

*Remmy Mbargwu writes from Mbaitoli, Imo State