BY CHIMA NDUBUISI
Prince Emeka Obasi
LAST week, this writer established that Emeka Obasi, the slippery and garrulous publisher of Hallmark Newspaper, had become the Lagos liaison megaphone of Abia State government.
Any critic of Gov. T. A. Orji or his administration is seen as an object for demolition or character assassination by slimy Emeka. There is always a superfluous budget for such dirty jobs.
It will be interesting to see whether Emeka will take on multi-billionaire Prince Arthur Eze who, without seeing the entirety of degeneracy in Abia State, last week, boldly, courageously and sacrilegiously (excuse the pun) removed the Ochendo global mask of deceit which had blind-folded Abians since 2007!
Has anyone pondered why cunning Emeka was sacked as the Commissioner for Information under the tenure of Dr. Orji Kalu? He was shortchanging media houses and diverting their payments for advertorials and supplements.
In the same vein, welfare packages meant for editors and reporters were either edited (journalistic jargon for pilfering) or not given at all. It got to a point when Dr. Kalu visited Lagos and some media managers confronted him. On return to Umuahia, Emeka, a sly and snaky human being, was kicked out to save the government from further public odium.
So, it is understandable, even if irresponsible, when Emeka decides to ferociously attack Dr. Kalu whenever the opportunity comes up—which is often because of those who have decided to bite the hand they fed them for eight years and ensured their inauguration and subsequent political ascendancy.
And if you check those who are in opposition and are routinely mentioned as “elders” are at loggerheads with Kalu for reasons that border on ego. Kalu’s pan-Nigeria popularity, international clout and carriage upset the vanishing clan of Emeka Obasi.
It is apposite to mention at this point that according to the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), the money Hallmark Bank Chairman and MD/CEO, Chief Marc Wabara, gave to Emeka to establish Hallmark Newspaper and another wrong-headed facility to Daily Times asset trippers contributed monumentally to the demise of the bank, which left many families stranded amid a few fatalities arising from the shock.
If you were a former employee of Hallmark Bank PLC, know from now that Emeka was partially responsible for your misfortune. The blood of all the affected staff who died or are languishing today because of Emeka’s bad debt will continue to torment Emeka till eternity just as just as just as the backlog of unpaid salaries of his former and present employees will hunt him forever!
The latest victim in this category is a former title editor in The Punch and immediate-past editor of Hallmark Newspaper, Mr. Casmir Igbokwe, who, like other suckers, was promised salacious package but conventionally left in hellish realms before the scales fell off his luscious eyes!
Is Emeka aware that his governor, in collusion and through the illegal and unconstitutional instrumentality of his son, Chinedu (notoriously known as Ikuku), has turned the state to Sodom and Gomorrah?
Prostitution—fallout of bad governance that cannot create jobs or welfare schemes—is now the thriving ‘business’ in God’s own state with hotels for ‘short-time’ services springing up everywhere! Last July, the state received N6 billion statutory allocation (according to the Ministry of Finance after deductions for N12 billion foreign loans owed by the state.
A large chunk of this money is substantially used to service Emeka and a coterie of shameless predators. It may also interest Emeka to know that disenchantment, despondency and regret have enveloped Abians whose docility has not helped matters.
Despite the monthly windfall from Abuja, Abia residents are subjected to various forms of asphyxiating levies and taxes, especially in Aba, strangulating despotism, willful destruction of properties, goods and markets without compensation, dubious legacy of non-existing or refurbished projects, forceful acquisition and conversion of people’s choice buildings in the disguise of official utility and state-sanctioned gangsterism.
Let me equally ask Emeka to explain what his master, T. A. Orji, has done with more than N900 billion accruals to Abia State between 2007 and last July, going by the monthly statistics of the Federal Ministry of Finance.
I am so sure Emeka must have been one of the major beneficiaries of the loot hence his viciousness against Kalu who was not so “generous” with public funds that are supposed to be held in trust in demonstrable social contract and not shared to rude and cantankerous ragamuffins like Emeka Obasi and Eze Chikamnayo (the unqualified information commissioner), while the governor’s imperial son gets the lion’s share and his puppet-father takes the crumbs. This scenario aptly illuminates the path to Golgotha.
Expectedly, Emeka in his infantile reaction to my earlier piece entitled “Emeka Obasi: An amnesic ingrate” left issues and begged so many questions in his tantrums.
In other not to wallow in similar stupor, I will strive to address his diversionary presentations, but that will still not obscure the issues I raised last week on multi-media platforms concerning this buffoon called Emeka and his mentor in Umuahia who is beginning to wind down for disastrous exit after almost eight dismal years, corroborated by Prince Arthur Eze last week.
Emeka was so daft as not to know that Kalu was not the author of that his life story written by this writer and published in Daily Sun of August 26, 2014!
Emeka’s first salvo in that thoughtless response, which he demanded in his earlier calumny, goes thus: “My second advise (sic) or infact (sic) warning, (otiose comma) is that you should henceforth desist from harassing Gov T. A. Orji.
Just think about it, are you the only Governor (faulty capitalization) who disagreed with his successor in office? Why all the fuzz? Have you ever heard Dr (Dr.) Peter Odili, Chief Attah (Obong (Arc)Victor Attah), Mr (Mr.)Donald Duke, Alhaji Bafawara (Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa), Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani, Alhaji Adamu Muazu (Mu’azu) etc, say anything against their successors? There is something fundamentally childish and unbecoming about this whole episode.”
Let me paraphrase Abraham Lincoln. Indeed, it is better for Emeka to close his stinking mouth and be thought a fool than to open it foolishly and remove all doubts. The latter is the mission this insolvent chap who regales as a prince has embarked upon.
I will without solicitation help him to dig his own grave in the days ahead. I keep asking, between T. A. Orji and O. U. Kalu, who is harassing and embarrassing whom? This question is not for Emeka, but the Nigerian public.
Of all the governors who succeeded the above-named former governors, which of them had been bestial, crude, saucy, mean, abusive and inexplicably disrespectful of their predecessors in office?
None of them has ever uttered a word against their former bosses who did not even play as much role as Kalu in their selection despite strong opposition, inauguration for the first tenure (before the militarization of Abia State with the help of a former Chief of Army Staff during the 2011 governorship re-run in Abia State). This is a chilling standalone topic for another day.
Does Emeka ever think before writing his monetized garbage? Who in this country is not aware that Gov. Orji is an epitome of ingratitude in his soured relationship with Kalu? Can Emeka tell his benefactor to publicly list Kalu’s sins and the circumstances that led to his piper payer’s emergence as the outgoing governor of Abia State?
After answering these posers, we shall then agree on who had been “fundamentally childish and unbecoming about the whole episode.” Even my cousin still in diapers knows the fact of this unprecedented tragedy.
Emeka should chew and digest this preface to the next entry in the series: “Regardless of huge federal allocation approximated to N60 billion yearly, IGR N50 billion annually, and N64 billion collected from federal account in 2012 by Abia State, which is exclusive of other allocations such as derivation (for oil-producing states), excess crude account, domestic crude account, SURE-P, NNPC refund and foreign exchange differentials, good governance remains an abysmal mirage in God’s own state!”
Ndubuisi is an Aba-based journalist.
Editor’s Note: Views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of The City Reporters
