By Reuben Onyishi
(Ugoachataberu)
History is a record of past important events. History according to Aristotle represents the particular while literature represents the universally probable. The representation of the particular is founded on truth. When history is distorted and falsified, it attains the bastard status of fiction.
The digging up of the the fossilized remains of the May 25th, 2016 carnage perpetrated on the unsuspecting and unarmed inhabitants of Nimbo in Uzo-uwani Local Government of Enugu State by Fulani herdsmen may have been appropriate, given that the same pattern of killings has been all the rage in the country persistently. The herders are let loose and they have continued to visit communities everywhere in the country with venoms and inhuman bloodbath.
The silence of the federal government under President Buhari’s watch and the fact that the herders who are his kinsmen have in no way been brought to justice is read as Buhari’s tacit support for the blood hounds and this has aroused much condemnation by the Nigerian citizens. The Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom, has been most vociferous in the condemnation of the wanton pogrom meted to his people variously in recent times. Senator Smart Adeyemi of Kogi State had also spoken emotionally about the killings and the blighting economic situation in the country and had asked the president to seek help from the international community. While Adeyemi’s emotions are understood and justified, many Nigerian had felt the constitutional option would be more useful than the senatorial overflow of tears. The situation calls for urgent action on the part of the senate to pull back the Nigerian state from its apparent brink of ruination.
So, if the call to memory of the Nimbo decimation is justified, what then is the justification for lacing it with lies as though it were fictive? We woke up this morning to a story that His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Ugwuanyi, had complained that he tried reaching the president before the incident based on the intelligent report he had gathered and was made to wait for hours by presidential aides. Those behind the misinformation of the public on social media gave the impression Ugwuanyi was snobbed. It was an impression he had no access to the president. That was the fictive aspect of the story. At no time did Ugwuanyi seek to speak with the president over the Nimbo carnage and was snobbed. His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, has come out to clear the air and in an interview he granted the press, he clearly stated there was no such scenario and there was no need for that in the first place.
We are all witnesses to how those who want to become governors in Enugu State by hook or crook have launched various campaigns of calumny and pull him down against the People’s Governor of Enugu State. They want to create an impression Ugwuanyi has achieved nothing and so Enugu State has become one long night of misrule from which they acting on God’s behalf want to deliver the state. This political opportunists cling to competence with absolutely nothing to show for it. Ugwuanyi’s achievements are as numerous as sand upon seashore. They are spread across the state equitably and the people of Enugu State are satisfied with the Ugwuanyi administration.
Whoever wants to become a governor can go ahead and market themselves before the people. Ugwuanyi is not looking for third term. Why must he be involved in all these infantile shenanigans? Why would anyone want to distort history in order to score cheap political points? It is unfortunate.
Ugwuanyi’s superlative virtues, in character, in learning and governance are crystal clear and his light shines brighter to perfection so glowingly that it has caught the attention of many Nigerians. Femi Fani Kayode, the former minister of aviation, attested to it this morning and has absolved Ugwuanyi of the taints of blackmailers and political jobbers acting the beast for their paymasters.
History is not fiction. If you must call history to memory, present it as it was. When history is distorted as it is in the case here, it loses its historical essence and slips into the conundrum of bastardized fiction. Truth stands sure and cannot be repelled and submerged under the rascality of political vilification.
