NKEMJIKA IBEKWE HAS NO REPUTATION TO PROTECT

In my first article concerning Mr. Nkemjika Ibekwe, I opened with this: “How could a real writer pretend to reply to another person's article, but waste 1,500 words with none employed in reply to the very subject at hand?” Then I added: “I would never have bothered with writing a reply because, in his rambling rigmarole, he did not refer to a single thing I discussed. Actually, I would have been happy if he jostled with me over my logic, conclusion or central thesis.

Yet, it was when I got to another key word in that same introduction that I knew Nkemjika Ibekwe was misusing words. That key word “riposte” refers to a “reply, retort, answer, reply, return” as in a quick retaliatory action or retort, and this is made clearer by its Italian root word of “riposta”, meaning “answer”.

I gave up at that juncture, convinced that I had been misled into taking Nkemjika Ibekwe serious by the claim at the article's end that “Ibekwe, is a researcher with Global Media”. Every journalism scholar knows that Global Media journal assess global media concentration, consumer culture, commercialization of news, new media technologies, media regulation, etc. But in vain did I search for their Abuja office where I had taken it for granted that Nkemjika Ibekwe was a Researcher as he claimed.  I even phoned him over this matter and he agreed to host me on October 1, 2015 in his office. Again, in vain did I wait for his promised phone call.”

So in his subsequent article, which may still be searching for a real publisher, but which he has self-published through mails on the internet, he at least tried to address an issue, though he made an abject mess of it. He wrote: “Perhaps, I should start this intervention by getting certain issues straightened out.  Newspapers or magazines do not express their views or opinions or positions on provincial, national and international issues through their staffers or columnists or their reporters.  They do so through their editorial comments.  There is no evidence anywhere that an editorial comment by the Nigerian Pilot exists with regard to my case with Ifeanyi Ubah.  When Eluemunor wrote that “The Pilot said” I was arrested “for alleged pilfering and playing double agent for other candidates in the November 16 guber elections”, he was clearly out to play mischief.”

Judge oh ye readers how right or wrong I was to have written that The Pilot newspaper “said” instead of reported or published. Now I quote from that news report entitled “Fraud: Police detain Ubah's campaign director”.

“As Anambra guber race gathers momentum, one of the key figures in Dr. Ifeanyi Ubah's camp is in detention over fraud and double dealings.

Nigerian Pilot gathered that… the Media Consultant in the Ifeanyi Ubah Campaign organisation, was involved in fraudulent activities of pilfering and playing double agent for other candidates in the November 16 guber elections.

It was also reliably gathered that …who had signed salaries and allowances of staff, helped himself with the funds, leaving others dry even as they engaged in daily campaign chores.

Confirming our story, Acting Director, Media, Ifeanyi Ubah Campaign Organisation, Mr. Emmanuel Ibeleme, in a release later made available to Nigerian Pilot in Abuja, stated: …. has been sacked as the Media Consultant of Ifeanyi Ubah Campaign Organisation.”

Now, my point is just to test Mr. Nkemjika Ibekwe's hairsplitting over the difference between a newspaper's editorial and news items. I never said that the Nigerian Pilot editorialized on Nkemjika Ibekwe. Instead, I wrote that the paper said …and I did not lie: “Nigerian Pilot gathered”…was the beginning of the report's second paragraph. And to show it was no misprint, the very next paragraph began with “It was also reliably gathered that…” The fourth paragraph removed all doubts: “Confirming our story”.  And right in that same sentence appeared this: “made available to the Nigerian Pilot”.

Now, dear members of the general public, who did the word “our” in “Confirming our story” refer to? It could not have denoted that single reporter who wrote the story. By the way, why do journalists after conducting an interview write that Mr. or Mrs. This and That spoke to (and they would name their newspaper? Nkemjika needs to learn certain journalism basics. And for crying out loud, The Nigerian Pilot was not the only newspaper that published that story.

Nkemjika Ibekwe, I will not leave the main issues involved here and join you in talking about Chief Ifeanyi Ubah.  Sincerely, I do not know the agreements you reached with Ubah, and the exact terms of that agreement. To me the contemptible allegation against you is that some journalists that worked with you have alleged that you never paid them their agreed wages or allowances. In your mails, you wrote about “the print media team I set up for him during the 2013 Anambra state governorship election”.  You even went further to grant that Ubah only paid “N3.6m. Now, this is the crux of the matter: how much did you pay any of them? Your own cousin, a real blood relation was one of those people you took to Nnewi for the campaign.

Mr. Nkem Ibekwe, is it actually true that you only collected N3.6 million from Ifeanyi Ubah? Well, there is the allegation that you  owned up that you actually collected N4.6 million in four tranches, as well as $4,000 and another N300,000 in four tranches, though you may have claimed that this second group of payments were received on personal grounds. Who knows, Chief Ifeanyi Ubah may have more payments to point at, if I take up the matter with him. But for now, Nkemjika Ibekwe, this is a non-issue. What matters to me at the moment is how a person could put a team together for an assignment, but deny the same members of that team their lawful wages. Mr. Nkemjika, if you could tell me that you actually paid them, if not their full wages, as the contract did not actually run its full term, (or did you work even while you were with the Police, and even after the arrest?), then there must be a way to calibrate their wages.  But, Nkemjika Ibekwe, did you do that? Did you?

Nkemjika Ibekwe, I wanted to remind you of that great saying by Jesus the Christ; asking us to first remove the logs in our eyes before trying to remove the specks (of saw dust) in other peoples' eyes, but I doubt you  would either understand or appreciate it.

And if you didn't pay them, even though you had collected some money from Chief Ubah, then would they not have been right to have accused you of pilfering?  In fact pilfering is milder than fraud – the exact word used in a publication.

In conclusion, Mr. Ibekwe called himself my intellectual foe! How on earth could Ibekwe be an intellectual adversary or opponent, when I have quoted copiously to show that he did not even understand some words he was using? What kind of “intellectually adversary” could have misused a word as common place as “riposte”. And when I pointed out any of such words true meanings, he offered no opposition? No, an “intellectual foe”, should be made of sterner stuff. Enough, the mere talk of Mr. Nkemjika regarding himself as an “intellectual foe” to any one takes my mind to some people's history at the University of Ibadan. But that is a story for another day.  But if he fancies himself as an intellectual adversary, he should please refer to the introduction of this article and that would cure him of his delusions of intellectualism. What I have seen so far is of the Onitsha market literature stuff.

Written by Tony Eluemunor.