Corruption and the obvious suspects apart, one of the issues bedeviling us as a people and specifically as a generation is our small dreams and ambitions. Why else would anyone think a man who has graced the biggest speaking platforms all around the world, including the United Nations, the African Union and a stint at a reputable European University would stoop so low to become another man’s assistant on New Media just so he can be ensconced in the mud on behalf of the President to seek who to drag down with him? If this sounds like pride, please take it all in because the best way to show one doesn’t need something is to show one has something of better value or at worst of equal value. By God’s grace, my state is of better value than some of the nonsense I get accused of.
I have dreams, but if I wake up one morning to see I have taken say Reno Omokri’s job – like his minions want many to believe – I’d go back to bed again just to be rid of the nightmare. I have since gone past that stage. If that doesn’t settle that part, then the delusion I have since believed many in the government and their cronies suffer from might be deeper than imagined.
Smarting from the blackmail of being accused of spending time in a German prison – like spending time in prison has become a state secret that no reputable German platform would publish it – Doyin Okupe and Reno Omokri felt it would be better to tell a lie involving money. Everyone knows that an average Nigerian believes the other Nigerian is only waiting for a chance to eat off the national cake. That must have informed the attempt at deciding a blackmail involving money would fly higher, faster and better. As usual, they are feeding off their own faecal droppings.
I had been invited by the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi to be at a Democracy Day event in Port Harcourt as a speaker. My schedule couldn’t permit it so I gracefully turned it down. While at another international engagement, an email came making the same request, this time with my itinerary accommodating the event, albeit involving me rushing from an Abuja event to the airport. I deliver speeches all around the world. Irrespective of how rich or poor the host organization is, my travel costs and accommodation incidentals are borne by the host. I used to compromise on this but not anymore. On select occasions, I do not send any invoice across to be paid for my time. On this Port Harcourt occasion, I didn’t send any invoice across, but I made it clear to the organisers my flight and accommodation would be borne by them.
This piece is not about what happened at the event proper; that can be read elsewhere. It turned out I’d not be making any speech. It was a question and answer gathering between the governor and all the invited guests. It did not matter much to me as I saw it a chance to get the governor to answer certain burning questions. It was a feisty session between the governor and some of those present. It felt great to see so called ordinary Nigerians engage a Nigerian governor without fear or favour. That is not to say the usual sycophants did not have their say.
All the questions I asked the governor were from my followers on Twitter. On the blackmail, at first, the tweets started from twitter accounts associated with Reno Omokri and Doyin Okupe. They stated I had collected N250,000.00 from the governor. I saw the tweets and felt so bad for those tweeting them. One had to feel bad for people who saw N250,000.00 as something one would collect for a two day engagement. It says everything about the self-worth of those who started the rumours.
Seeing as N250,000.00 refused to fly, they raised it to N5 million. Having created a fake Sahara Reporters page on Facebook, they stated each person present at the media chat got N5 million each from the governor. They even went as far as creating a fake image of a cheque but in their usual shoddy manner did a poor job of that. They had the name of the recipient printed instead of handwritten on the cheque. They had one signatory as though it’d take a signature to move money from a State Government’s account. They could not even bother to check the quoted account number was the usual 10 digits as it is in Nigeria and so they messed that up too. They forgot the cheque being a government’s cheque had to be a crossed one. It was such a shoddy job at blackmail. In fairness to them, they may themselves be less than average in their ability to reason; they obviously understood the psyche of the average person. Few people crosscheck what they see, more people want to see others fall so some bought the lies.
This is not for those gullible enough to believe someone like myself would go to Rivers State to collect money from Governor Amaechi. If I need N5 million, I will make it the same way I have made money since I was a kid: create value and earn it. For some of us, the joy of having money comes from the thrill of creating value.
Those in the mud are desperate to have others join them. It is like a student who fails a course and derives a lot of joy from knowing that many others failed the same course. That way, there is a comradeship in failure. The President’s aides are desperate for comradeship in their ensconced state in the mud. Of a truth, if they are patient enough, they will have some more people willingly join them there because as far as money goes, money will fail anyway. I may fail at that sometime tomorrow but I haven’t. Those who stand for people like myself, who believe in our ways and words and who are inspired by our bravery and stance against bad governance can rest assured we still stand!
N5 million is less than £18,000. It is too small a scandal, and Reno Omokri especially in his state of mind as Wendell Simlin should know better. Why not raise the money to an amount big enough for attention or even attach it to one or two terrorist blasts like he did his February 26, 2014 letter. Hard to expect Doyin Okupe not to be involved in this but it would help to see them set up a real scandal as blackmail. This was too easy to unravel. You can fool all the fools at the same time but you must do better if you must fool those smart enough to think beyond fake websites and fake Sahara Reporters Facebook pages.
I have dreams, but if I wake up one morning to see I have taken say Reno Omokri’s job – like his minions want many to believe – I’d go back to bed again just to be rid of the nightmare. I have since gone past that stage. If that doesn’t settle that part, then the delusion I have since believed many in the government and their cronies suffer from might be deeper than imagined.
Smarting from the blackmail of being accused of spending time in a German prison – like spending time in prison has become a state secret that no reputable German platform would publish it – Doyin Okupe and Reno Omokri felt it would be better to tell a lie involving money. Everyone knows that an average Nigerian believes the other Nigerian is only waiting for a chance to eat off the national cake. That must have informed the attempt at deciding a blackmail involving money would fly higher, faster and better. As usual, they are feeding off their own faecal droppings.
I had been invited by the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi to be at a Democracy Day event in Port Harcourt as a speaker. My schedule couldn’t permit it so I gracefully turned it down. While at another international engagement, an email came making the same request, this time with my itinerary accommodating the event, albeit involving me rushing from an Abuja event to the airport. I deliver speeches all around the world. Irrespective of how rich or poor the host organization is, my travel costs and accommodation incidentals are borne by the host. I used to compromise on this but not anymore. On select occasions, I do not send any invoice across to be paid for my time. On this Port Harcourt occasion, I didn’t send any invoice across, but I made it clear to the organisers my flight and accommodation would be borne by them.
This piece is not about what happened at the event proper; that can be read elsewhere. It turned out I’d not be making any speech. It was a question and answer gathering between the governor and all the invited guests. It did not matter much to me as I saw it a chance to get the governor to answer certain burning questions. It was a feisty session between the governor and some of those present. It felt great to see so called ordinary Nigerians engage a Nigerian governor without fear or favour. That is not to say the usual sycophants did not have their say.
All the questions I asked the governor were from my followers on Twitter. On the blackmail, at first, the tweets started from twitter accounts associated with Reno Omokri and Doyin Okupe. They stated I had collected N250,000.00 from the governor. I saw the tweets and felt so bad for those tweeting them. One had to feel bad for people who saw N250,000.00 as something one would collect for a two day engagement. It says everything about the self-worth of those who started the rumours.
Seeing as N250,000.00 refused to fly, they raised it to N5 million. Having created a fake Sahara Reporters page on Facebook, they stated each person present at the media chat got N5 million each from the governor. They even went as far as creating a fake image of a cheque but in their usual shoddy manner did a poor job of that. They had the name of the recipient printed instead of handwritten on the cheque. They had one signatory as though it’d take a signature to move money from a State Government’s account. They could not even bother to check the quoted account number was the usual 10 digits as it is in Nigeria and so they messed that up too. They forgot the cheque being a government’s cheque had to be a crossed one. It was such a shoddy job at blackmail. In fairness to them, they may themselves be less than average in their ability to reason; they obviously understood the psyche of the average person. Few people crosscheck what they see, more people want to see others fall so some bought the lies.
This is not for those gullible enough to believe someone like myself would go to Rivers State to collect money from Governor Amaechi. If I need N5 million, I will make it the same way I have made money since I was a kid: create value and earn it. For some of us, the joy of having money comes from the thrill of creating value.
Those in the mud are desperate to have others join them. It is like a student who fails a course and derives a lot of joy from knowing that many others failed the same course. That way, there is a comradeship in failure. The President’s aides are desperate for comradeship in their ensconced state in the mud. Of a truth, if they are patient enough, they will have some more people willingly join them there because as far as money goes, money will fail anyway. I may fail at that sometime tomorrow but I haven’t. Those who stand for people like myself, who believe in our ways and words and who are inspired by our bravery and stance against bad governance can rest assured we still stand!
N5 million is less than £18,000. It is too small a scandal, and Reno Omokri especially in his state of mind as Wendell Simlin should know better. Why not raise the money to an amount big enough for attention or even attach it to one or two terrorist blasts like he did his February 26, 2014 letter. Hard to expect Doyin Okupe not to be involved in this but it would help to see them set up a real scandal as blackmail. This was too easy to unravel. You can fool all the fools at the same time but you must do better if you must fool those smart enough to think beyond fake websites and fake Sahara Reporters Facebook pages.
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