ALLEGATION OF SMUGGLING THREE CHINESE DOCTORS INTO IMO AND GOV. UZODINMA: MATTERS ARISING

BY ETHELBERT OKERE

I am sure that Governor Hope Uzodimma is not under any illusion that the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the camp of his predecessor, His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, in particular, will give him a breathing space at least for now or even in the nearest future. Conversely, the PDP and Camp Ihedioha can only be consoling themselves to think that Governor Uzodimma is yet to take full charge of the affairs of the state. By all means he has. Clichés like “Supreme Court Governor”, “Push And Start” etc. have been invented by the opposition to describe the Uzodimma administration but such things are too cheap and trivialize the essence of credible opposition.

Much as many Imolites expressed shock over the January 14 2020 Supreme Court ruling that brought in Senator Uzodimma as governor, they have since moved on, not because they do not appreciate the fact that Ihedioha showed some promise but because there in a legitimate administration on seat right now; and as law-abiding and a peace-loving people, they have decided to rally round it in the collective task of building the state. The earlier PDP operatives realize this, the better for all of us. Of course, it is to our best interest that the opposition party lives up to expectations as a credible alternative but care must also be taken to ensure that its modus operandi is not reduced to mere grandstanding in the social media.

As a matter of fact, opposition politics in the country in general faces a lot of challenges in the wake of the social media; for the simple reason that many social media practitioners are unable to distinguish between the unchecked liberty they enjoy and the imperatives of political engineering. On the other hand, politicians, themselves, have been unable to distinguish between their trade (politics) and the exuberance of their social media handlers. In the fierce struggle for power, most politicians and their parties have been unable to school their social media handlers on the need to avoid taking undue advantage of the absence of regulation in the industry to over indulge themselves. Only a few have done so.

It is to his credit that Ihedioha, at the heat of the post election litigations, cautioned his social media handlers to be circumspect in their characterization of personalities in the then opposition All Progressives Congress (APC). Now that the table has turned, we should expect no less from His Excellency, Senator Hope Uzodimma, who has, in any case, reportedly also cautioned his appointees not to denigrate political leaders in the state, no matter their leaning.

In the last couple of days, there has been this brouhaha over some reports in the social media credited to the PDP and some of the elements manning its media organs. One of such reports claimed that Governor Uzodimma “smuggled” three of the Chinese Doctors that arrived in the country a few days ago into the state! Not unexpectedly, an altercation has since ensued between the ‘reporter’ and the media handlers of the governor, especially after his Chief Press Secretary (CPS), Mr. Oguwike Nwachukwu, issued a statement which pro-PDP elements have branded as “threatening”. I will return to that but let us briefly interrogate the plausibility of the said report.

It is most unlikely that Governor Uzodimma, no matter how influential or connected he is within and with the federal establishment, would have succeeded in taking three out of the fifteen Chinese doctors in less than twenty four hours after they arrived the country, given the controversy surrounding their coming in the first place. Both the federal authorities and the Chinese company, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation Nig limited (CCECC), under whose auspices the Chinese medical experts came, have said that they were to go into a 14-day isolation before commencing their mission. Besides, the doctors, we were told, are not to have personal interface with individual patients as their primary purpose of coming is to install and test run equipment and materials and guide local practitioners on their uses. “The primary purpose of the working team is to escort the medical supply, provide guidance for their use and distribution” the company said in a statement last Wednesday.

Now, even if Governor Uzodimma had wished to bring some members of the team to Imo, what reason would he have given both the federal government and the CCECC management considering the fact that there is no single case of COVID-19 in Imo. The point, therefore, is that the possibility of the purported “smuggling” in of three members of the Chinese medical team is, as far as I am concerned, zero.

Now, to the response by the CPS. Perhaps the part that is irritating to most observers, especially media practitioners in the state, is that Governor Uzodimma “will no longer tolerate nonsense from lousy social media irritants… He will not under any circumstances condone deliberate ploy by persons who see the social media as a tool to malign his person and office”. Clearly, that is in the superlative evidently sent out in the fit of anger. But it is not a true representation of Governor Uzodimma’s attitude to media reports, as I know him. He doesn’t have such a proclivity.

So, did the CPS goof and if he did, should we go for his head? Agreed, the words, “irritants”, “nonsense”, “tolerate” are too strong to be employed in response to the report in question in particular, and to media related issues in general, but I think the controversy arose more out the fact that the CPS fell into an ambush than a factual representation of the idiosyncrasies of his principal. The reaction to the statement is orchestrated because it is against the backup of an obvious hostility between the PDP, and its media operatives, on one hand, and the Uzodimma administration on the other, for reasons that are too well known to warrant any details here.

As far as I am concerned, the statement, as much as it cannot be taken to mean that it is the official attitude of the governor on false media reports, does not portray the CPS as incompetent on the job. It is a well known fact that media handlers of governors and presidents in our country especially are never in the good books of many members of the public, particularly their colleagues outside. In the case of governors, every media practitioner in the state sees him or herself as more qualified to handle the job than the person or persons those handling it.

A media handler of a governor is like a candle lit at both ends. Most of his colleagues believe that he is the only thing standing between them and the governor. At the same time, a fastidious principal is often made to believe that he is not doing enough. If there is an issue at the ministry of works, for example, and it gets to the media, the governor’s friends will call him to say: “what are your media people doing?”; as if the media handler or handlers were present when the editors decided to go to press with the matter. Thus, a governor who gets carried away by such interventions may end up always tinkering with his media team and thereby becoming even more vulnerable.

I have said nothing to suggest that some people are after Nwachukwu’s job even though I have also come across publications in some of the local (some say the word “local” is a derogatory!); I mean Imo-based newspapers apparently suggesting to the governor to “unbundle” Nwachukwu’s office; that is, to split his job as Chief Press Secretary and Media Adviser into two. But I have seen nothing, so far, to suggest that the governor’s novel idea of combing the two portfolios is altogether wrong. However, in case the governor finds the aphorism that two heads are better than one relevant in this instant, utmost care must be taken to ensure that two such heads will, indeed, complement each other rather than see themselves as competitors.

As I noted at the beginning of this essay, Governor Uzodimma should be under no illusion that the opposition would be clapping for him. That is neither to his interest nor that of the state as a whole. Still, the same opposition would be serving the state better if it elevates its tactics over and above the characterization of an “irritant”, even if it comes from a most uncharitable member of the APC or the Uzodimma administration.