By Dr. Adam Udedi
One major problem of the Enugu Labour Party governorship candidate, Barr. Chijioke Edeoga and his retinue of social media trumpeters, purveyors, minions, pawns, and hirelings is that they are predictable, fixated, clueless, and preposterous.
They lack creativity and simple reasoning. This obviously contributed immensely to their defeat in the governorship election and subsequent loss at the tribunal. Even at that, they have not understood well the popular saying that once bitten, twice shy.
This is why ahead of the Appeal Court judgment on Edeoga’s appeal of his loss at the governorship tribunal, Edeoga and his cohorts have continued on the same road to perfidy and loss, which is fabricating and peddling of falsehood and propaganda on social media platforms, using hungry, handy and compromised marionettes and charlatans, masquerading as journalists, human rights activists, lawyers and academics.
Latest on the rollcall of these characters is one Mr. Emmanuel Onwubiko from Abia State. It is obvious that Onwubiko, who is the Executive Director of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has turned his organization into an appendage of Edeoga’s Enugu Labour Party and Edeoga’s social media lawyer, spin doctor and mouthpiece. This is not surprising because Onwubiko must survive, especially now that the economy is in tatters and HURIWA, which has been surviving on political jobbing since its establishment is struggling to remain in existence.
Before establishing HURIWA as a non governmental organization in 2007, Onwubiko who was a journalist with The Guardian Newspaper, had delusional and utopian belief that the organization will have or attract global recognition and reckoning like other NGOs. But that has not come to fruition for over a decade now simply, because Onwubiko derailed completely from the organization’s fundamental objectives of fighting for human rights, especially for the downtrodden and oppressed, to political jobbing and meddlesomeness for personal survival and aggrandisement.
This is the reason nobody, organization, or government has taken either him or his platform serious or does anything with them. It is only desperate, mischievous, and drowning politicians that use their platform as cheap and last resort to do dirty and yeoman job in the media, especially on social media.
As can be seen, witnessed and observed, this is why it has been easy for Edeoga and his co-travellers to be using the organization’s name and platform to fabricate and peddle lies that suit them on their pending governorship appeal against Gov. Mbah’s victory, thinking that such will lend credence to their false claims and guarantee them victory at the Appeal Court, forgetting that an average Nigerian has known HURIWA as a political chessboard and pawn that is always available to be used after collecting the agreed financial gratification.
Let no one be bothered or surprised seeing or reading Enugu Labour Party and Edeoga’s handdown press releases, articles and fake stories on Enugu governorship judgment being issued recklessly, intermittently and shamelessly with HURIWA’s letterhead often signed by Onwubiko, who knows nothing about the Enugu governorship judgment or pending appeal, but has been doing the biddings of the Labour Party’s candidate, Barr Edeoga after being compromised. This is quite unfortunate and disappointing of an NGO that was established to fight for human rights.
