By Fejiro Oliver
I was in Alagbon cell when Gov. Ifeanyi Okowa's SSA on New Media decided to pen down an insulting post about myself. Instead of writing constructive statement or attempting to reply my post on the Governor, he chose to dance to the song of the known power hungry and desperate charlatan. When the rat is away, the mice runs around was the best description of what he wrote.
He has gone about for years telling people that if not for him Dantes Odogwu, I wouldn't have joined the Okowa's prosperity train. I let him peddle those lies for personal reasons, but will today end it.
That records won't be wrong, I joined Ekwueme team purely out of conviction through the instrumentality of his Principal Secretary, Hilary, who stood by me when I had issues in Niger State.
This was when I was basically against Okowa who was a Senator and was doing damaging report against him onJohn Agbe as well as Sunny. I followed up the story and sent it out to prominent media houses till I was abducted in Abuja.
Before then, Okunbor Ehi Alex has given me reasons to join Okowa which I was still contemplating. Inspite of my hard stance against his Principal, Hilary never abandoned me in my moment of travail. This was enough conviction that if he is good, then his principal must be good.
Not Dantes or his now failed Deltans Diaspora made me join the SMART train. Hilary's good unseen good nature and Alex persistent to link me up to the PS saw it through. And since then till date, the conviction that he was and still is the best man for the job has not changed.
I do not seek the validation of man to know what is right and write what is just. For Dantes to pen down what was told him by a now envious and backstabbing man who has openly admitted that he came to this government through my instrumentality but has suddenly become more Catholic than the Pope in less than two months of coming on board goes to show how people can easily be influenced when they have no stand on their own. The write up by him is obviously the hands of Esau but the voice of Jacob.
I will deal with the voice since he chose to allow himself to be used. It's always been me against them since this administration began and may continue to be so.
I do not belong to the league of sycophant followers who will pretend all is well with me or the state when it's not. El Rufai and Sanusi Lamido are strong ally of the President but have penned down hard letters to him that never went down well with him, but it hasn't stop their loyalty or caused the President to hate or abandon them.
I made it clear from the beginning of this government to Ekwueme that I do not want to be among his praise singers but be his moral compass in government. Agreed that I have sometimes written and spoken when I shouldn't and I take the blame for it.
Dantes, how daft can a supposed friend be. So after going through my last write up which was purely on personal and emotional expression of myself and many others, he could not understand it, but to be seen as doing his work, he took to his facebook page to display his daftness.
I can't remember when he became the CPS that speaks for the governor or when he became the SA on Social Media. Maybe he needs to refresh his memory.
The SA on Social Media job is for facebook, twitter, instagram, snapchat and other social media network, while his job as SSA on New Media entails news websites and blogs.
Simple! Unfortunately, he was given a job bigger than him. He was given a position outside his natural field of practice.
Probably because he was just doing graphics that any fool on the streets can do through Deltans Diaspora, he equated himself as a New Media person or even a social media personality.
Delta is one funny state that just anyone ascribe to themselves the appellation of social media guru, when they have never been invited for social media influencers tour of other states by their governors or consulted before on how to effectively run a social media handle.
I need not remind Dantes how he was elevated from SA, Special Duties to SSA New Media and despite the uproar it generated, it was calmed down. Let his conscience on that be his judge.
For Dantes to insinuate that I have no electoral value and can't deliver Okowa is most desperate of him to knock down a man.
Am I a politician to go ward to ward canvassing for votes for Okowa? Have I ever told him or anyone that I am a registered member of a party who will stand in queue to tell electorates on whom to vote for? It's not in my place to deliver votes for the governor physically but mentally and that is what Dantes forgets.
During the last electoral campaign, can Dantes tell us if he was on ground while we transversed the entire state seeking for votes while I was sending the reports out to all the Online Medium? No, he was in UK enjoying himself while we did the work.
He was having a good time in London while we stayed under the sun and sending live news to media houses to publish without paying a dime to any of them. This was a time when we stood no chance in the media as we had been blacklisted. The facts are there and empirical! Yet we succeeded.
Dantes? Still at shock on his ill fortunes reply that he could not read between the lines. Can it be denied that my loyalty has been unshaken despite losing a mega buck FG contract simply because we play a politics of winner takes all? Can it be denied that I have remained true to the prosperity agenda even though two years down the line, the grass has not been green on the other side? If Dantes has lost the FG goodwill just one percent, I can bet he would have since quitted and screamed.
An SSA on New Media that has never spoken on phone to Elombah, Premium Times, Sahara Reporters, 247Ureports, Abusidiqu, Universal, Investigator News, Bizwatch, The Whistler, Breaking Times, The Trent and many prominent online Editors and publisher yet has graciously been covered from failing still collects salary and imprest but still decides to write down on people who have freely used their medium and association to his friends to save his job.
Probably, the government and the Governor should let one percent of a fault come to pass and let's see how he struggles to make the government come clean.
The teachers strike and subsequent negativity that comes with it would have been the best bet for him to show his onions, but again, he should be grateful to some persons in government who intervened to let the New Media not focus on all that was happening.
He should ask Lere Olayinka what happened to his famous Principal, Ayo Fayose when teachers went on strike this long without any Headmistress dying.
Again, I owe no one votes. Femi Adesina didn't deliver a single vote on ground for Buhari but as soon as Buhari was sworn in, Secret Reporters was the first memory to report that he was going to be appointed SA Media, because we knew he rendered his platform to launder Buhari's image. Garba Shehu didn't go to his ward to campaign or vote for Buhari.
He even joined Buhari very late as he was with Atiku throughout the primaries but is today the SSA on Publicity.
Tolu Ogunlesi was never a member of the campaign team but like some of us used their education and talent to mentally control minds into believing in Buhari and governors of their choice. If that alone is not enough, yet remains a member of the kitchen cabinet, then Dantes does not know what it means to separate politics from media participation.
I could name 5 persons who are not in Buhari's government but active kitchen members and insiders of his media and publicity team.
I had every chance to be part of the Buhari Social Media Group but for the sake of loyalty to the state government, I didn't.
If such loyalty to friendship and principal is not good enough to have the ears of the powers that be, as feared by Dantes and his Co travellers, I wonder what else qualifies one to be an active player in government.
We have not forgotten so soon Dantes ranting during the last yuletide when he whined and cried like a kid simply because he felt shortchanged. He posted 15 useless times without asking questions of the actual thing.
He deleted the posts later the moment few wads of Naira was added to him, but we were smart enough to have screenshoted all of them and when the time is ripe, we will serve him his dish of sycophancy.
For a man who should be a British bred gentleman to join politics and swim in sycophancy goes to show that cowardice and bootlicking is inborn and not rubbed off.
Dantes has completely lost, first from his failure of handling Deltans Diaspora, his inability to learn what the job of SSA New Media should do to now joining team with same persons that will pull the trigger just when he thought he has seen an ally.
I have seen it all in the course of this job and can tell where people like him and his bad belle people ends up. It favors no one.
If F.O is the stumbling block to their meal ticket as peddled in some quarters, I gladly leave the stage for them. Someday, Agaracha must return home.
When they are done, I will still be here having the last laugh. If in doubt, the sealing of Guinea House should serve as a lesson that when you think I have forgotten a struggle, that's when the doom is about to happen. My quietness on his job as media aide is not because he has performed excellently, but out of love for the Governor and the state.
Dantes, may you not use your own hands to bring about your doom. When it happens, it just might be late.
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