IKENNA SAMUELSON IWUOHA: DECONSTRUCTING A STOMACH-INSPIRED ACTIVIST

The half-education of an ignoramus, they say, is his biggest tragedy. I have read countless write-ups credited to one Ikenna Samuelson Iwuoha yet it has been rather too difficult to come away with any other impression outside the fact that Samuelson is a gun for hire!

The public may also have noted the fervour and viciousness with which Iwuoha has always lashed out particularly at Chikwem Onuoha in his scripts. On Chikwem Onuoha alone he has written close to half a dozen articles perhaps in the hope that by demonizing Onuoha, he would attain sainthood and ascend his imaginary throne as the “conscience of Imo” as he often addresses himself.

True enough Chikwem Onuoha served in the Governor Ikedi Ohakim administration and as a public officer cannot be immune to public criticism. At least there should be some basis, facts and justifications for every article that seek to lampoon a personality even if the personality happens to be a nursery kid.

Samuelson's unsubstantiated tirades have always been ignored but for the sake of the new society Nigeria is fast becoming with the passage into law of the Freedom of Information bill, I think his celebration of half-truths and outright falsehood has gone far enough.

One of his recent publications which was again centred on Chikwem Onuoha is entirely a manipulative jumble of imaginary incidents, dates, figures and locations borne out of perfidious ingenuity. The work which unfortunately was published in some gullible and naïve news platforms smacks of roundly obtuse, reckless and yellow journalism, enough to erode in quick succession, the credibility of any media organization.

In any case, for the benefit of doubt and without attempting to dignify the mendacious piece, I wish to note:

. That having known Onuoha for over a decade now, there is no iota of truth in the puerile assertion by Samuelson Iwuoha that Chikwem Onuoha and his 'younger brother' Kennedy were arraigned in Lagos in 2002 on charges of corruption.

To show the criminality of the mind behind the allegation, Iwuoha went as far as fabricating dates of publications, location of incident and names of individuals just to create a factual scenario.

For one, Chikwem Onuoha was not in Nigeria in 2002. At the time, he was studying for his degree in Business Communication in the South African campus of the Australian Bond University .

For another, Kennedy is not Chikwem's younger brother but his elder brother; a trained electrical engineer who at the time had worked for Nnewi Breweries and thereafter NITEL.

These facts are verifiable because the magistrate court Igbosere he mentioned still exists today. It takes only an atrophied mind and a beclouded conscience to publish such outlandish allegations against another man without the least attempt at corroborating the facts.

. Samuelson Iwuoha alone knows the source of his fairy tale claim that Chikwem Onuoha received a contract to supply 100 vehicles to Imo Transport Company (ITC) which he under-supplied. We all know that ITC has not closed shop in Imo state and all that any decent person or organization needed to do was to go over to the company's headquarter in Owerri and verify this claim.

For Samuelson and his collaborators, this is not an option because the obvious truth is that neither Chikwem Onuoha nor any of his brothers have ever executed any contract for the transport company.

. Samuelson also claimed that Chikwem's academic record is not straight. According to him, Chikwem did not attend Federal Government College , Jos but Bishop Shanahan College , Orlu.

Obviously, Samuelson have an express mandate to malign Chikwem and apparently had a timeline to do so which informs his desperation to churn out these pathetic allegations to justify his keep by his paymaster.

When did it become an aberration to attend more than one secondary school? For the fact that Chikwem reflected FGC Jos in his INEC and political party nomination forms should tell any sane mind that the issue is already in the public domain and could easily be verified in the schools in question all of which are still in existence. Perhaps, because the dense author of the report learnt in one of his beer parlour interactions that Chikwem attended Bishop Shanahan College , he then thought he could shut out the fact that Chikwem have attended another school just to give dignity to his lie. With that publication, it suddenly seems more convenient to jettison the standard practise of verifying facts before publication just to give vigour to the grand conspiracy to whittle down the credibility of Mr. Onuoha.

. In his ugly manifestation of full blown mean-spiritedness, Iwuoha in his confusion claimed that Chikwem altered his date of birth from 1978 (In another publication, 1976) to 1971.

Why would a man, in a society where many are altering their ages to appear younger, tamper with his age to become older by 7 years? Shame!

We sympathize with his readers who may now be choking in the sensational garbage he has consistently chosen to feed them.

If Chikwem Onuoha was born in 1978, when was his five other younger brothers born? Chikwem has been consistent in the use of his date of birth and besides, by law, only one's parents are in a position to determine his age and not any paid writer or charlatan.

Iwuoha and his cohort are fast running out of ideas on how to undermine the House of Representative mandate of Chikwem Onuoha and are restlessly shopping for grounds to blotch Chikwem's political profile. They can only try, but as usual, they will fail and we hope that Samuelson would not choke on the fruit of his dirty labours.

Simply put, the publication he tagged “Chikwem Onuoha: The making of a rogue/criminal” which is a deliberate collection of injurious lies, is indeed a grave disservice to good conscience and a threat to decent journalism practice in the country. Publishing it all represents the same ethical malpractices that had continued to denigrate decent journalism practise in this country.

The Underlying fear:

There is one reality that has refused to go away; one truth that cannot be twisted; an ever-present reminder that the bubble would soon burst for Matthew Omegara, the dark-hued claimant to the Okigwe North Federal Constituency seat. This is the crux of the matter.

Samuelson would not tell Imo people and the reading public the truth why INEC refused to present his financier (Omegara) with a certificate of return to consummate his so-called victory at the poll.

Same reason informs the sudden all out assault against the person of Chikwem Onuoha by the paid charlatan who literally arrogates to himself God – with the power to make or mar anybody, especially those who are not prone to his exploitations or had defied his extortionary game plan.

The case between Chikwem Onuoha and Matthew Omegara on the controversial Okigwe North house of representative seat is still pending at the federal high court, Abuja where development is becoming more interesting by the day. And this is why Samuelson is frothing in the mouth in his bid to assassinate the character of Chikwem Onuoha.

In another publication he blurts: “Onuoha cannot represent Okigwe - Samuelson” This outburst of frustration which was published in a local tabloid in Imo does not sound like the line of a man who has victory in the bag but that of one who is uncertain about the mandate he claims and needs to run down his opponent at all costs, to look good.

If Omegara had won the said election, naturally, he would no longer be bothered whether Chikwem is competent or not to represent Okigwe. Unfortunately, the reverse is the case and we now know why Samuelson is crying wolf.

And to do the job of name-calling and personality-bashing, the ever willing, cash-and-carry, ill-equipped junk merchant, Mr. Samuelson Iwuoha is just the right tool to sling the mud.

So who is Samuelson Iwuoha in this entire scenario?

- He set out parading as a journalist until he was accosted. Most people outside Owerri still refer to him as a journalist while he is just a man that owns a pen and can manage to piece a sentence together every now and then.

His motivation is clearly pecuniary, and if you pay a man of little scruples well enough, there are very few things he would not do at your prompting.

That is Samuelson.

- He has no job or any known means of livelihood yet he labels himself “a social crusader”, “an emancipator”, “the conscience of Imo state”, bla…bla…bla - all in the mould of late Gani Fawehinmi, Wole Soyinka and the likes. Tall dream, big laugh!

The story of his life and the goofy scripts he writes, all reek of repugnant self adulation and egocentricism. In most of his scripts he lists himself first or second in the chronicle of Imo patriots and those that should be consulted if Imo must move a step further.

Which society would trust an 'activist' without a legitimate source of income? And in this case a married 'activist' with children to feed; which is why every junk Samuelson churns out has a price tag and financier waiting in the wings to pick up the bill. It is apparent that the sponsor of his next meal determines the slant of his next script. Call him a stomach-inspired activist. That is Samuelson.

.Our dear social crusader is hopelessly partisan. In one of his recent publications he described Hon. Matthew Omegara as his “client” and went further to add that his is Omegara's “political consultant”. Omegara is still locked in a legal battle with Chikwem Onuoha over the Okigwe North House of Representative seat; we can now see why Samuelson is out to draw blood from Chikwem Onuoha and every decent man knows that Samuelson with his compromised position is incompetent to assess or even discuss the credibility of Chikwem Onuoha. He just cannot appraise the antecedents of his Oga's major opponent without his usual rancorous bias. This is the colour of his activism and advocacy.

In all his “crusading”, Samuelson would never fail to tilt his argument in favour of his party, the ACN and his 'governor', Senator Ifeanyi Araraume who throughout the period of the last election was one of his dependable 'milk cows'.

His usual retort to this is to cite Wole Soyinka and Gani Fawehinmi as activists that leaned towards a political party ignoring the wide divide between his antecedents and that of the duo he is often quick to cite. He often forgets that the two gentlemen are hard workers who earn decent living and founded their own political parties to conform to their ideologies. Unfortunately, the only ideology Samuelson understands is: “Pay me the money; show me the person and you will read it tomorrow.” That is Samuelson.

- Samuelson is known to be unstable and inconsistent to the point of nausea. He is a crack 'social crusader' and the 'conscience of Imo state' yet his write-ups clearly portray him as a purveyor of hate and a marketer of falsehood. The bulk of his articles if they qualify to be called articles dwell on persons and not issues; they tear down without building up; they condemn efforts without suggesting way-forwards, they bring pain and not comfort; they dampen morale and do not inspire; they disseminate tales of woe and not hope; they largely advocate personal sentiments for relevance and not collective interests for public good.

He easily takes the cake for inconsistency and self-service.

That is Samuelson.

- While he was claiming to be a social crusader and advocate for all those allegedly oppressed by former Governor Ikedi Ohakim, he was secretly writing letters to Governor Ohakim asking to be compensated. All these letters are still available.

In paragraph six of a congratulatory letter he sent to Ohakim on Thursday, 26th March, 2009 , after Ohakim's Appeal Court victory in PortHarcourt, Samuelson wrote:

“I seriously need compensation to start life again. My wife is from your place MBANO. Conversely, you are my children's NNAOCHIE (maternal kin)” (The capitalized emphasis, his).

Here, Samuelson meant to cut a deal for himself behind all the people he pretended to be advocating for, but the governor was apparently not interested and Samuelson went back to his trenches to resume his gutter fight.

Recently too, I read his piece that said that Rochas Okorocha had started well. The fact that Rochas has started well needs no saying; only that Samuelson is angling for a way back to Okorocha's heart, perhaps to increase his sources of income. I immediately recalled the avalanche of lies he unleashed against the man few months back.

In his symbolic grandstanding however, he mentioned his lies against Okorocha in the same piece but instead of apologising for his the disservice; his egocentric nature had the better of him as he insisted that his attack spurred Rochas Okorocha into more action.

And the question is how? It was a venomous stinker that was meant to really ruffle Okorocha and sway his followers.

A portion of the lines that Samuelson claimed he wrote to spur Okorocha reads:

“Therefore for Rochas Okorocha to openly challenge the governorship zoning formula in Imo State is an affront that must not be allowed to stand. I therefore call on all Imo Citizens in general and the people of Owerri zone in particular to condemn this treacherous act and behaviour of Rochas Okorocha. He is a well known confusionist who likes to reap where he has not sown. He should be seen as a thief who has come to steal the fruit of our labours after we have collectively sensitized the people of the state on the misrule of Ohakim. Let us collectively remove the hand of the monkey in the pot of soup before it becomes a human hand.”

Clearly, this is not the sound of a 'democrat', a 'social crusader' or the 'conscience of a state.' This is the sound of Samuelson Iwuoha.

At the bottom of the said essay which he captioned “Rochas Rochas Rochas… How many times have I called you?”, he wrote: “Watch out for part two.”

Guess what? The part two never came because there were no more lies to trade against the man and besides, nobody would be willing to fund it since Rochas has already become governor. That is Samuelson, the “conscience of Imo state” and the “Defender of the universe.”

The inconsistencies continue:

For Matthew Omegara's interests, Mr. Samuelson is willing to label Chikwem Onuoha anything but good, yet his paymaster Omegara is not as golden or graft-free as Samuelson cares to tell. Scores of shady deals and capital offences have been allegedly tied to him. An indication to this effect vividly came in February last year when he was one of the two legislators out of the over 300 members of the lower chamber that openly stood against and voiced his opposition to the effort to boost the anti-corruption campaign in Nigeria.

It was during the debate for “a Bill for an Act to make provisions for the restraint and civil forfeiture of property derived from unlawful activity and any instrumentalities used or intended to be used in the commission of unlawful activities; to make provision for the investigation of benefit derived from corruption, money laundering and instrumentalities.”

The bill was sponsored by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) with a view to giving the anti-corruption war a boost.

After 20 legislators commented encouraging the passage of the Bill, Omegara stood up and disgraced his constituency and infact, the entire Igbo race with a most discordant and inconsistent argument that portrayed him and perhaps his constituency as a people at home with corruption.

His puerile excuse for opposing the Bill on the floor of the House was this: “If we pass this bill, I foresee a situation where a hard working Nigerian who has made his money may become a victim in the hands of the police and other security agencies who will harass him to declare where he got his money, even though he has been working hard.”

One therefore wonders how this blabbing honestly connects to the Bill in question. Take a second look at the Bill and you begin to wonder why a decent legislator would be bothered about security agencies asking him 'how he got his money'. Only the guilty are afraid!

That is the colour of Omegara's representation at the National Assembly and evidently not in the mould of legislators that would give us the legislative revolution Nigeria is in dire need of.

He is just the kind of legislator Samuelson would align with. He would not see anything wrong with Omegara until the day Omegara alters his 'disbursement' formula or outrightly stops his stipend.

This incident was also published in the Next newspaper of 25 February, 2010 and it goes to show that only a man that has plenty to hide would want the EFCC put on a tight leash.

Samuelson needs urgent help:

Sometime ago, I read a piece by one Comrade Eugene Igwe captioned “Ten questions and a note of warning to Ikenna Samuelson Iwuoha” (http://thewillnigeria.com/opinion/7679-IKENNA-SAMUELSON-TEN-QUESTIONS-AND-NOTE-WARNING.html). At the end of what seems the best counselling Iwuoha may get in a long time, which was couched in genteel and courteous language, Comrade Igwe inevitably recommended therapy.

So I will not be the first nor would I be the last to advocate that Samuelson Iwuoha needs urgent therapy before he packs up a mental case. The noise in his life is gradually becoming too loud to bear as his psychological challenges continue to threaten his sanity, stability and coherence.

Samuelson may have gone through frustrations and deprivations but could still be reclaimed through rehabilitation. With the pressure to keep up his status as “Renowned Crusader”, “Conscience of Imo” and “Social Critic”, he may not exactly appreciate the toll these efforts take on his mental stability which apparently totters on the brink. In his own interest, he should see a psychotherapist before the screws drop.

Even if he feels well, he should still get a check-up, you never can tell what may come up. Imo would do better with saner public commentators occupying public space.