OPINION: NKEM (JIKA) IBEKWE HAS NO REPUTATION TO PROTECT (3)

In “Ubah, Eluemunor and Jaundiced Writing” Nkem (Jika) Ibekwe wrote: “the media is not the place where my matter with Ifeanyi Ubah will be finally resolved”. That was the third silly reason he gave for why he would make no further reply to my writ­ings about him. Yet, in that same last paragraph of that same article where he gave that third reason, he still made this promise: “Even then, the re­joinders to Eluemunor’s child­ish tantrums against my per­son will see the light of the day in some other Newspapers like the Nigerian Pilot and the Na­tion, etc, once the time extend­ed to The Authority Newspa­per by my lawyers to publish them and pay some compen­sation for smearing my name and reputation expire”.

Judge, oh dear reader, if something is not terribly wrong with Mr. Nkem (Jika) Ibekwe. Why did the incon­gruence in that paragraph not hit him right away? If the “me­dia is not the place where (his) matter (with anybody) will be finally resolved,” why then would he threaten to resume his media attacks against me and Chief Ifeanyi Ubah, if his thoughtless ultimatum to me, Ubah and The Authority News­paper does not line his pock­ets with cool cash? So does it mean that under certain situ­ations, the pages of the news­paper would become the right place for resolving legal issues? He should go and listen to Jim­my Cliff’s reggae music track; “You can’t be wrong and get right, no matter how hard you may try”.

Yet, one could presume from here that all that is firing this Mr. Ibekwe is just the whiff of easy money!

Mr. Ibekwe also wrote: “My matter with Ifeanyi Ubah will be finally addressed by the po­lice, the DSS and the courts”. Who will advise this man to stop scattering threats to eve­ry direction? And does he not know that only the courts ac­tually decide legal issues? Well, whenever Mr. Nkem (Jika) Ibekwe decides to resume his writings on Chief Ubah, the members of his media team, The Authority newspaper and I, he should know that one thing is certain; he will meet me ready to make nonsense of his thoughts and syntax.

Here, I know that many read­ers will wonder why I am tak­ing this matter so seriously. This is because many people have phoned or e-mailed me to leave this matter alone … for several reasons. But the most frequently mentioned reason is that the Nkem (Jika) Ibek­we issue is not worth my while. My reply has always been this: That I did not have Mr. Ibek­we in mind when I wrote about Chief Ifeanyi Ubah in the Sep­tember 23 issue of the Van­guard newspaper. To make a total disclosure about the ori­gin of that article, I will say that Barrister Afam Ilounoh called me one evening to remind me that Ubah’s birthday was at hand. Then he asked pointed: “Tony, as Chief Ifeanyi Ubah is your friend, why not write about him?” That was how that piece appeared. I am sure that the same Mr. Ilounoh also urged on the other two persons who wrote about Ubah with­in the same period. He is that good at keeping Ifeanyi Ubah’s back covered. I had no reason whatsoever to have Mr. Ibek­we in mind when I was writ­ing that piece.

Yet, blinded by malice, Mr. Ibekwe came out swinging at Chief Ubah, myself and two others. And now, I think even he knows I am in this for the long haul. Let him write about me and he will get my reply. Let him write about Ubah, and he will be greeted by my reply. Let him write about the other two journalists, and he will see my reply. Let him write about members of the media team, and I will take the matter up with him. Why would I be so willing to do this? The first rea­son is that I love to teach eve­ry bully his place – to cure the society of such ill. This is a se­rious public service.

The Second is terribly per­sonal and my explanation comes from Shakespeare’s Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, where Old Polonius counsels his hot­headed son Laertes, who is about to embark for Paris for his gentleman’s education. The most famous of Polonius’ aph­orisms is “Neither a borrow­er nor a lender be.” But lost somewhere in that scene is this gem which I have embraced a long time ago: “Beware/Of en­trance to a quarrel, but being in,/Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee”.

Nkem (Jika)Ibekwe, showing to the whole world the sort of journalism he practices, wrote: very soon the public will read the details of this matter in an interview captioned, “HOW I ESCAPED DEATH IN THE HANDS OF IFEANYI UBAH – Nkem Ibekwe” and also in my forthcoming book entitled, “Ifeanyi Ubah: Profile of a Beat in Business and Politics”.

My question: How did Mr. Ibekwe become so sure of an interview whose publication is still in the womb of the fu­ture, that he knows the inter­view’s title? Or did he conduct the interview on himself? Or did he drop the title into the public space, “gboza”, to fright­en Ubah into rushing to him to “settle”?

And he also gave the name of an anti-Ubah book he may write … if some serious mon­ey is not rushed to him. Chief Ubah has nothing to fear in ei­ther Nkem (Jika) Ibekwe’s in­terview or book. He should be sure of one thing; I will demol­ish both the interview and the book. I will write a complete book if need be, to counter the nonsense he could produce – judging by the qualities of his articles so far. A man who does not know how to use basic English words as I have pointed out in two articles, would only write in a book, most naturally, “One glaring Chaos and wild Heap of Wit” – to quote Alex­ander Pope. I will be very hap­py to face a book by Nkemji­ka where he will talk the same nonsense he has been regurgi­tating for a long while now, and show the world how useless a writer the man is.

I may even go from there and touch on some person’s univer­sity education and perhaps the dirty works they did in sundry places – all in a bid to fully in­form the public of the dangers of demagogues who pose as writers.

Before I rest my case for now, there is one issue that deserves mention. How could a man, who has been doing P.R. du­ties for the high and mighty as Ibekwe claimed to have been doing for decades, fail to realize when he is busy incriminating himself? On the allegation that though Ibekwe had personally granted that he collected mil­lions of Naira from Ubah but failed to pay members of the media team that he had put together during the 2013 An­ambra elections, Ibekwe re­plied that other members of that team sabotaged Ubah’s ef­forts by originating anti-Ubah stories. If this man who threat­ens to sue everybody has any sense of strategy, he should have known that Chief Ubah had little dealings with mem­bers of Ibekwe’s media team, and that if any of the members sabotaged Ubah’s efforts, the team itself would be held lia­ble? And was Ibekwe not just a part of, but head, of that team? Is that act of sabotage one of the reasons for which he is ask­ing for further payment? Was Ibekwe the first person in that team to discover that act of sabotage? Would any contract still subsist after that act of sab­otage?

And here is the major ques­tion: did Ubah and Ibekwe sign any contract? If not, how did he arrive at the figures he has been touting about? Chief Ifeanyi Ubah may already have enough grounds to counter-sue him. I too have.

Written by Tony Eluemunor .