The Unraveling of Val Obienyem

Ever since his master handed over power to his successor in the first peaceful transition in Anambra State, Val Obienyem has cut the pitiable picture of a marooned dog, baying at the moon. In the past one year or so, Obienyem who was thrown out of Seminary school for many egregious offences has shown the world why he was considered unfit for the priesthood. The Agulu-born midget has demonstrated remarkable deviousness, assuming different unimaginable characters on Facebook to cast a spear at Governor Willie Obiano. At different times, Obienyem has worn the mask of Akuko si Anambra, Fact Finders, Ikuku Ama N'onya, APGA Alaigbo, Eziokwu bu Ndu and a dozen other weird monikers to attack the subject of his pet hate – Governor Willie Obiano. Not surprisingly, observers are beginning to wonder why Obienyem has chosen this regrettable path of bitterness. Why is he so angry?

It may not be easy to hazard a guess. But perhaps we might begin to understand his rage if we realize that until the Igbo hero, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu handed him over like a poppy to former governor Peter Obi, Obienyem had led the life of a rolling stone; gathering absolutely no moss. After being considered not good enough to become one of the Lord's shepherds, Obienyem had re-launched his life, bagging a law degree as a part time student. Unfortunately, he ran out of luck thereafter and could not pin down a respectable job until he wrote a third-rate biography on Ojukwu. In appreciation of his efforts, Ojukwu handed him to Obi and that was how the journey began.

In giving the above background, my intention is simply to answer the question - why is Val Obienyem angry? What can be easily glimpsed from Obienyem's background is the fact that he was ill-prepared for the weight of the responsibility placed on his shoulders by Obi. He had obviously no training in reputation management, public relations or serious journalism beyond a scrappy stint with the defunct Post Express. Being so poorly prepared meant that Val lacks the broad vision that the job requires. Consequently, he simply narrowed his job

to ridiculous praise-singing and laughable genuflection. Anyone who has followed Obienyem can easily see that he sees himself as the modern day griot; serenading his master with gushy praise songs at every step while doubling as a quack photographer, snapping ludicrous shots of him to celebrate on Facebook. How demeaning! His understanding of his job belongs to the Stone Age or better still, the days of ancient African kingdoms whose kings could do no wrong. To him, Peter Obi is always. In clearer terms; Obienyem is PR's

nightmare! He singularly lowered his high office to the status of mere errand running and no more. Do you blame him? What experience does he have?

Another answer to why Obienyem is angry is the fact that his perception of his job was heavily coloured by his survivalist instinct. Having been rescued from near-starvation, he lacks the gumption to offer the slightest difference of opinion on any issue to his boss. To him, loyalty means threadbare idiocy; unquestioning zealotry that saw him waging wars with virtually everybody, from Okey Ndibe to Chuks Iloegbunam to Chukwuma Soludo and Victor Umeh and just about anybody who raises the tiniest voice against his boss even if there is merit in the argument of the opposition. Obienyem's ability to switch into the mode of an attack dog is disgusting. He has no capacity to provide the occasional critical thinking that would have helped his boss shake off the tunnel vision that marked his years in office when Anambra was a mere extension of his Next Supermarket. Even if he has, and he actually doesn't, he lacked the balls be his own man and push through any viewpoint that might not win the instant approval of his boss. So, in Obienyem, we have a servile and laughably obsequious character who took fawning to a despicable level.

If Val Obienyem's infantile hero-worship is annoying, his endless posture as a pseudo-intellectual is simply infuriating. Even in his brightest moments, Obienyem lacks the gift to elevate the conversation. Yet, he is wont to draw his tribe juvenile fans on facebook into the moldy tunnel of his Seminary days to encounter his favourite ancient Greek philosophers and a handful of forgotten proselytizing Roman characters. Often times, his articles are never complete without quotes from Emperor Constantine or St. Augustine. At such moments, he would adorn the toga of pseudo-intellectualism and sound as though he had just discovered what has been in existence for centuries but failed to change the world. You wonder if Obienyem has ever heard of the body of knowledge known as the Classics, which people go to the university to study and shudder at his gleeful spouting of what is a readily available body of knowledge as precious pieces of excellent scholarship. You shake your head even more vigorously when you remember that Obienyem's closest friend is Mazi Odera; a reformed drug dealer who cannot write a good sentence and may not even have read a book in the past ten years. Obienyem and Odera; two odd balls, are Peter Obi's hollow-headed media team. There's precious little to choose between rotten palm kernel and a broken mortar, as our people say, but if you truly look at the educational history of their boss, you will understand why they fit snugly in the tapestry of his personal universe.

Sadly, as their hopes of misappropriating presidential power and influence to run Willie Obiano out of office ends in smoking rubble, one can't but pity the seeming disintegration of Val Obienyem's diseased mind. It is showing itself in his demented attacks on Governor Obiano without his usual disguise. And with the thorough beating of his boss in the last House of Assembly polls which saw Chief Obi losing his own polling booth, we hardly require a crystal ball to see that the intellectually cross-eyed Obienyem is headed to the dunghill where knaves like him await the final verdict of history.