Emeka Obasi: I least expected this!

Emeka Obasi: I least expected this!

By Odimegwu Onwumere

I have known Prince Emeka Obasi for over a decade now. We have had numerous phone interactions. He has a calm voice and has the art of advising and making peace. I’m saying this because these are the ways he sounds in any of our conversations. This is the reason I least expected that one open letter to Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu that is signed with his name was coming from him till I was proved right to believe so through many rejoinders and counter-rejoinders in that respect to the said letter.

I’ve known Princes as peacemakers and not those that throw tantrums and take side when there is uproar in a given situation. If actually that my friend Emeka is a Prince by heritage and not by mere choice of name, he would not have started his so-called open letter to Kalu by writing that he read “with a great deal of embarrassment the article that was ghosted in the column you allegedly write in The Sun Newspaper of Sunday 16th August 2014”.

If he knew the ignominy of his sentence he would by now be on his knees asking for forgiveness for infringing on the fundamental right to speech of Kalu.  Obasi could be seen that he was bent on using Hate Speech against the person of Kalu, perhaps oblivious of the level Hate Speech can go.

If he does not know the level Hate Speech could go, he should know it today that it was the Hate Speech of Adolf Hitler between 1941 and 1945 against the Jews that led to the killing of over 10 million people by the German military when the Jews were camped in four different concentration camps. They were burned, shot, cremated, and shown with any forms of bestiality that any sane person cannot think of.

It is not in the position of Princes to throw tantrums when their dukedom is ensnared in the fight of the Titans like our state of Abia is experiencing between the present governor T.A Orji and his predecessor Orji Uzor Kalu of which if Obasi was sincere enough as he sounds on phone whenever we are conversing knew that he benefitted in no-less ways from Kalu in whose administration he served as a commissioner and was appointed to man other portfolios.

I do not want to say that Obasi was an opportunist because I read in one of the rejoinders that Obasi became commissioner through the efforts of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida who implored Kalu to make Obasi commissioner. Obasi knew that IBB is among the many Nigerians that Kalu has Kilimanjaro respect for and he did not waste that opportunity. But today, he is rewarding Kalu with the obverse?

What Prince Obasi should have done was to be preaching and carving out ways to make bring peace between the once two brothers who are now divided by politics, which was occasioned by such gossip like Obasi’s “open letter to Kalu”, because of the lucre for wealth. I do not want to write what I read in one of the rejoinders against Obasi’s position against Kalu that Obasi is a man who can do anything disgustingly depraved because of money; I do not also want to write that a Prince like him was said to had been in enmity with the father before the father died some years ago. I do not want to write that he might not be at peace with himself, so he would not like peace to reign in the state, hence the balkanization.

If we may take the above as political attacks, are we also going to take the position of the Prince siding Governor Orji for the pummel of Kalu as a gimmick because Governor Orji is his clansman?  Obasi did not think otherwise before insulting the personality of Kalu. If his letter were to be a country it’s struggling with economy, insecurity, unemployment, hunger and has threats of a man who was battling with his conscience while penning down those lines that have now smacked a lot of critiques against him.

I remember in November 25 2001 when Obasi was serving under Kalu as the State Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, while delivering the press brief about the suspension of the Deputy Governor Chief Eyinaya Abaribe, who was suspended by the State Executive Council in Umuahia the previous day, said, “the decision to suspend Abaribe was thoroughly deliberated on by members and the resolution was unanimous (which Obasi was a member? Mine).

“The Executive Council thoroughly considered the issues raised against the deputy governor which bothered on absenteeism from Exco meetings and office. Council members were particularly aggrieved that he has consistently portrayed them in very negative light.

“His conduct negates the spirit of collective responsibility which underpins presidential system and collegiality which binds members of the state executive council together as a body.”

But this same Obasi is now among those who would insult Kalu with their spiteful comments that Kalu did not ‘get’ it as governor, whereas they were the people calling the shots. Remember that Kalu did not attend the meeting were the likes of Obasi squared up and suspended Abaribe.

I’m not sure what leads people into such behaviour as double-speaking like Obasi has shown in his open letter to Kalu today. I don’t want to believe that my friend Obasi is the beggarly type that genuflects to the side that is rosy today thereby forgetting the past and his stance in those days.

When he was Commissioner under Kalu, he saw Kalu as the messiah that came to Abia State. But now that his “Dede” in the person of Governor T.A Orji is in power, the later has become Obasi’s messiah all in a bid for stomach infrastructure.

What was expected from the Prince was to make peace and not be pointing fingers against his “Dede’s” perceived political foe. If there was any man who benefited from Kalu when he was governor I think that person was Obasi with different portfolios to his credit under Kalu’s administration. My advise to Obasi is that in the ‘scale of preference’ between a cow and road, wise people choose road to cow, because they know that the road would never close, but the meat from cow does not last forever.

Odimegwu Onwumere, a Poet/Writer, writes from Rivers State.

Email: apoet_25@yahoo.com