OMEHIA, AMAECHI & AIT: Exodus 9:1 At The Supreme Court--Pharoah, Let My People Go!)
One thing about telling lies is that you need multiple other lies to sustain the first lie, and before you know it, you would have plunged yourself into a recurrent cycle of lies.
Yes, it was November 11, 2013, another day the protracted legal tussle that has soaked the office of Governor, Rivers State took all eyes and all ears to the Supreme Court.
In the early hours of the day's proceedings, you must have read on the social media, especially from Government agents, or from AIT and Gbenga Aruleba (streaming on the news bar), that the
Case/Suit filed against Rotimi Amaechi, by Celestine Omehia, at the Supreme Court has been struck out, abi?
The news describing the case in deep legal classification as ''an exercise in academic voyage'' (Note that at the point of this broadcast on AIT and spread of the news on social media on the said date,
arguments were still on in the court hall: Counsel were still on their feet). Surprised? I am as well. We will get back to that and ask that question you eagerly want to ask.
Information management is the most important tool/skill in life; individually, as an organization, or an institution. The life of an entity and the public perception of that entity is shaped by and largely dependent on information management......this is one aspect of life that must not be compromised, or
slaughtered on the altar of pecuniary interest; you don't 'misinform', as truth has a way of always bringing its head to the surface..."
Anyhow you package lie reach, truth go always scatter am"....The managers of information must as a matter of personal and ethical discipline refuse to dish out half truths, distorted facts, and/ or malicious lies....it destroys gravely the integrity of the self, the organization, or the institution...especially when truth does surface eventually, because it always will.
The result is that even when you tell the truth tomorrow, people will find it difficult to believe.
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED AT THE COURT ON NOVEMBER 11, 2013?
You may wish to know that, Amaechi appealed against the decision of the Federal High Court, Abuja which was in his favour. On his appeal to the Court of Appeal, his Counsel Lateef Fagbemi
quoted copiously the Supreme Court decision in Obi V Ngige.
Therefore, both Omehia and Amaechi are appeallants against Cyprian Chukwu at the Court of Appeal. For the records: Sir Celestine Omehia did not file an appeal against Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi at the Supreme Court. It is Amaechi who filed for an Appeal over the ruling of the Appeal Court in favour of Omehia.
The above means that Omehia's case against Amaechi being reported to have been struck
out by the Supreme Court is completely false and maliciously intended to insult the sensibilities of
Rivers people and misinform the public (Then you will ask just like I am asking: by who and for what reason?). We will come back to that.
If a case involving Amaechi and Omehia has been struck out, then it is halleluya for Sir Omehia, as it will mean that Amaechi has lost his appeal against the Respondent Court's ruling in favour of Omehia.
The information managers in the Government of Rivers State seem to know only how to tell lies (I hope not, though). They are seriously becoming serial liars (again, I hope not so)...my mind tells me
that this is one such feather-in-the cap the Government and the Governor does not
need now and may not approve of (I maybe wrong).
This information management team is doing the Governor more harm than good
with the way they are managing information (TRUTH, as the Governor's negative image have come mostly from truths uncovered moments after every faltering of the information managers)....Please messrs, stop portraying the Governor as a pathological and repugnant liar.
Another mind boggling thing is that the Chairman of the panel kept saying they were going to deliver judgment on that day, even when arguments had not been exhausted. Like you, I was equally wondering what judgment he was referring to. Was there a judgment already, had the Panel already reached a conclusion before arguments had been concluded?
Arguments and briefs; oral and written, plus the citations therein are the premises upon which the Court determines the submissions and positions of Counsel, so it rather raises questions when judgments appear to have been framed even before briefs are adopted.
Fact is: Chief Udechukwu SAN (Omehia's counsel) had on the last adjourned date being October 3, 2013, informed the court of a motion he had filed and would not want to take it then since the matter was as at that time, yet consolidated. He so observed, because by his thinking, other parties who were not on record owing to the fact that the matter being heard then was "SC336/2013" and persons who are only parties to "SC111/12" cannot be heard on SC336/12. He (Chief Udechukwu
SAN) on that ground, stood down the motion.....During the CONSOLIDATED hearing of SC336 and SC 111, chief Udechukwu SAN observed that other counsel were dancing to a 'choreographed delay tactics and technicalities' and sought to withdraw his motion to in his exact words, "bury the technicalities" ALL other counsel did not object to the withdrawal and the Court granted the withdrawal of the motion/application accordingly....Let me quickly add that the fact that a motion was struck out today is not false in its entirety but that was consequent upon Chief Udechukwu SAN (Omehia's counsel) application to the court (which no counsel objected ) to withdraw a motion he had filed before the last adjourned date. IT WAS SIR OMEHIA WHO ASKED TO WITHDRAW HIS MOTION.
This is different from when a Court suo moto,strikes out a motion. For the interest of those who
don't know, Motion withdrawn, and struck out is not the same thing as dismissed motion. It simply means that the same motion can be refiled and be heard. It is a technical way of getting tomorrow what you would have lost today. Only those with eagle eyes can see it.
From an observer angle, this and the heated argument from Udechukwu and
Oke (counsel to PDP) was the spanner in the wheel of 'judgment' the Chairman of the panel had consistently insisted on giving and also a momentary killing of the music which had put Rt. Hon. Rotimi
Amaechi in the 'Agaba dance' mood since the funeral of the First Lady's mother at Okrika and which he had boasted on the occasion of the tumultuous reception for his APC admirers that he would dance again on November 11, 2013.
At Okrika it was a dance of 'I am Rotimi the unusual child, even right here under your nose you can do nothing to me' and in Government House Port Harcourt, it was 'they haven't seen nothing yet, if they know what I know, they would know why I am dancing'..... The question is, what is drumming for Governor Amaechi and where is his confidence coming from? What does he already know that they do not know?
On the body of the suit before the Supreme Court, which is Amaechi's appeal against the ruling of the Appeal Court in favour of Sir Omehia, all other adoption of briefs and oral submissions by counsel, except for counsel to PDP who still has until monday to file were taken.
It is worthy of note that the PDP (a principal party to the originating suit at the High Court) is supporting the stand of Sir Omehia on this matter. The Court rose, adjourning to February 7, 2014 for ruling.
The champagne popping by the pro- Amaechi camp would have surprised me if not for the suspicion of some spiritual drummer, I would have described it as immature, I would have said it is as a result of lack of knowledge of the proceedings in court, or simply a malicious attempt to hoodwink the public into believing what they want them to believe, yes I would have simply dismissed them with the wave of the hand, but this merriment speaks louder than voice and has caused some questions to refuse to
let other curious and enlightened minds and myself rest; 1. How and from where did the AIT and
Gbenga Aruleba get the judgment of the Court which they were streaming whilst the Court was still in session?
Note that the news so streamed employed the use of deep and classifying terminology “an exercise in academic voyage”, thus it makes sense to ask:
2. Was AIT and Gbenga privileged to a/some confidential document(s) of the court in the name of a 'judgment?
3. As the head of a Panel, can I or my panel say we are going to decide a matter in which arguments and addresses, briefs were yet to be finally submitted and adopted?
4. Is there a correlation between this and the festive and dancing countenance of the Appellant of recent?
5. What was the outright misinformation on the actual proceedings of the day set to achieve?
As Rivers people (Amaechi's camp, and Omehia's camp) sing 'Pharoah let my people go', and Nigerians look , from day light to wee hours as the clock ticks… Oh! I remember the works of Zulu Sofola; (Evans Brothers Limited, 1972,1991) Wedlock of the Gods: A tragedy which finds its roots in the ritual of death and mourning.
The traditional solemnity of the ritual is distorted however for, rather than engaging in the normal funeral rites and rituals which should have cleansed her and sent the spirit of the deceased to the world of the gods, the widow expresses a sense of liberation from unwanted marriage, while the mother of the deceased performs rites meant to destroy her son's widow as an act of vengeance for supposedly killing her son.
Or, is it that the spirits have met and negotiated marriage; that a bride price of gold, frankincense and myrrh have this time come from the mother of Christ to the Wise men. Could this be the reason the wedlock of the gods has been fixed at a 40,000 capacity stadium by December where by then as they suppose, a jilted President would be forced to be the Officiating Minister?
Chibuike Mgburogwu is a Writer, Thinker, Political Strategist and Analyst, from Port Harcourt.