DELSUTH WE KNOW; LESLIE WE KNOW; BUT WHO IS FAME IGHOMUDIKE? (1)
Confrontation is not a dirty word. Sometimes it's the best kind of journalism as long as you don't confront people just for the sake of a confrontation - Don Hewitt
When journalism becomes a field to witch hunt, torment and blackmail perceived foes due to their inability to dance to dictated tunes, it can best be described as gutter and bush literature writings. When we were yet to recover from the mushroom journalism practiced by major elements in Sapele and Delta State and a sinker written about it by no other person but me, another deadly precedent stares us right in the eyeballs.
Before I'm called a sponsored writer as I expect; I tender a release that I have not been paid a farthing neither a shilling to mastermind this piece as my reports cannot be paid for with the fattest of bank cheques. Haven worked in a foreign based media as a spy reporter, reporting basically on the ills of Nigerian governance, lampooning fraudulent elected government officers and lambasting corrupt individuals which has been termed blackmail by those I report about, I know blackmail when I see one and owe it as calling to investigate and report the truth. This piece is one of such.
Delta State University teaching hospital (DELSUTH) will always be in the news for every reason. I have reported on the hospital management and still will, but records must be set straight. For weeks, various community newspapers which have been scanned and sent to me have not only attempted to dent the image of the Chief Medical Director(CMD) Dr Leslie Akporiaye, but exposed the writer(Fame Ighomudiake) masquerading as a pen pusher but using a pseudo name to carry out such coward and poorly written literature. For the over a million readers who read my columns on various national newspapers, national and international media websites, it's an apostolic knowledge that names of individuals are not with-held in my write up.
On page 4 of a community newspaper, Urhobo Vanguard, with the title “ As Eku takes over from DESUTH”, the freelance writer Fame Ighomudiake with an all knowing title 'media analyst' in his usual characteristics write up accused the CMD of DELSUTH, Dr Leslie Akporiaye of not coming to work to oversee the hospital. In his previous ignorant shady articles, he penned that the CMD lives abroad and thus his inability to properly function as a director. I beg for pardon. Was the CMD abroad before he was asked to head the hospital? A resounding “NO” is the chorus answer. 'Fame Ighomudiake' the self acclaimed media analyst to me is not writing about the same DELSUTH CMD that my former media house has reported on but 'DESUTH' (the spelling in his article), a hospital conjured from his 'professorial' medulla oblongata. Let us analyze his claim that Dr Leslie does not come to work every day.
Now Dr Leslie whom I have secretly spied on is not just a CMD but a lecturer of medical students from Delta State University. If literature writers like Fame expects the well travelled doctor to teach the students in his office, he then must be living in the moon. Being the CMD has not stopped Leslie form carrying out surgery on numerous patients that throng the ever Mecca hospital. We do suppose that fame expects Dr Leslie to carry out the surgery in his office and not in the theatre. The Dr Leslie we know has done clinical and operative surgery in over twelve fellowship rotation and will be inhuman to stay in the comfy of his office while patients are in dire need of surgery. The Great Britain and USA trained doctor it must be noted has practiced more in these countries, known and practiced their ways of life and thus not our typical Nigeria administrators who are in positions to feather their nests to the detriment of the institution they oversee. It is laughable that our literature writer who has been a critic of Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan will suddenly turn round to praise the Governor for carrying out some face lift in Eku general hospital, a place where Dr Leslie according to available records at my disposal was a consultant, general and urological surgeon for 14 years with a total working period of 21 years. Ironical it is that he was unknowingly praising the same man who had worked there. It amounts to a mental disorder for any man in his right senses to compare Eku hospital with DELSUTH. The Eku Hospital I know is like a guest house to the five star hospital that DELSUTH is with functional medical equipments and thorough bred medical professionals both local and expatriate delivering world class services in less than two years of Dr Leslie appointment as CMD.
While 'professor' Fame claims that Leslie does not come to work, he forgets to mention that a kidney transplant dialysis center is about to be set up by Leslie in conjunction with a USA teaching hospital which MOU will run for five years. How did his all knowing mind exclude the MOU with a South Africa Laboratory company to build a skill acquisition center or the plan to have a neuro-surgery department. As 'Prof' Fame praises Uduaghan to high heavens, its unknown to him that the governor who do no wrong worked with Dr Leslie at Shell Development Company, Warri and thus knows his capabilities to have appointed him as the CMD of DELSUTH more than our 'Prof' who writes tales by moonlight. As other CMDs run their hospitals like a charitable organization, doling out money to 'journalists' to write about them, Dr Leslie has chosen to run DELSUTH like a health care delivery centre but business oriented which will be self sustaining in five years. This is the anger of Godwin Oghre.
Yes! Godwin Oghre, a Vanguard newspaper freelancer in Sapele without any media certificate, yet seeking the Sapele chapel NUJ secretary position is the masquerade called Fame Ighomudiake, claiming to be a media analyst, as well as soliciting for a space in Urhobo Vanguard to write. Nothing escapes true journalist eyes, especially guerilla reporters. It's time to expose Ighomudiake!
On page 14 of the newspaper, the same Fame who begged for a space to write suddenly reports with the title “company management cry out over abducted staff” using Fame Ighomudiake as his byline. Our dear 'media analyst' could not hide his identity even in a newspaper as the 'reporter' in him emerged. When has a media analyst become a reporter for the same newspaper he pleads for space with? Godwin Oghre according to available reports has become an albatross in the neck of various companies and institutions in Sapele and environs, terrorizing them like an emperor whose monetary bid must be obey, and failure to do so attracting media damage. This is the undoing of DELSUTH who invited him to cover an event, but to be paid later. DELSUTH failure to pay above the sum agreed upon prompted a slap on the hospital accountant secretary. This is the battle that Godwin Oghre alias Fame Ighomudiake has vowed to fight until the CMD and his management bow to his cheap blackmail of calumny and extortion.
This is the failure of journalism where psychiatrist patients are allowed to handle the pen hiding under the Nigerian Union of Journalist. As I await replies and knocks from Godwin Oghre and his cronies on this short expository piece, let him be challenged to switch on his mobile telephone line(08120413532) dedicated to his blackmail cause to prove me wrong. Let the media war begin…
Fejiro Oliver, a Journalist writes from Uyo and can be reached on [email protected]