*By Basil Okoh*

When an important public office holder is held for high crime, government media systems go on overdrive. Instead of dwelling on crime committed, government media organs automatically go on the defensive, redirecting public attention and anger, looking for who else to blame other than the culprit. They look for who reported the crime, who petitioned the police or who leaked incriminating documents or evidence to EFCC or police.

People are then distracted from the enormity of the crime. They make the public focus instead on how the crime was leaked, not how it was committed. The persons from whom information about the crime was gotten are presented as villains and the criminal himself becomes the pitiful victim.

That is how Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa is now being presented. He is the victim of detractors who reported him to EFCC over a possible theft of N1.3 Trillion in DESOPADEC. Government media men have changed the narrative and Okowa is now the victim. But these detractors being presented in bad light did not arrest Okowa and had nothing to do with the missing money at DESOPADEC. No one in the media can possibly rubbish the integrity of Ifeanyi Okowa if Ifeanyi Okowa himself does not rubbish the integrity of Ifeanyi Okowa by his own actions.

Not a single one of the government defenders is talking about the missing funds discovered by EFCC. That is by the way. Only the safety and integrity of Okowa matters. And it appears no one is betting on the investigative skills of the financial crime agency and their capability to discover such a big crime without the aid of petitioners and informants.

Mr. Olisa Ifeajika, erstwhile Chief Press Secretary of the Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa’s administration, did so well in his manipulation of public information and the reversal of roles by presenting Okowa as victim. He describes the petitioners and informants in so many disparaging bugaboo. They are: “dubious elements”, “diabolical”, “mischievous”, “traducers” and so on … ad nauseum.

But then the facts of the matter are simple:
1. EFCC arrested Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa.
2. EFCC gave reasons for his arrest.
3. EFCC kept him in detention for a week.
So what did “detractors” do to Okowa to earn abuse by Ifeajika?

EFCC stated plainly that Okowa was arrested to explain the issues observed in DESOPADEC finance and mentioned the loss of 1.3 Trillion. The “traducers” didn’t invent that figure. But Ifeajika wasted everybody’s time writing a rehash of Government finances for eight years. Was anybody questioning government finances for the period? Was Okowa arrested because of Government finances or the finances of the agency DESOPADEC? Why was he busy answering to questions that no one asked him? Does anyone even believe his figures?

In any other nation people praise the patriotism of crime informants. The Police establishment work with them or use them to help solve high crime in society. Their works are recognized as civic duties. Here in Nigeria, they are vilified and made to appear as evil people out to settle a grudge, hence the popular use of the catchphrase “disgruntled elements”. How can anyone not be disgruntled when N1.3 trillion of public wealth is alleged to have been stolen by one man?

Mr. Ifeajika spent his entire time abusing everybody without throwing light on the alleged crime. Those involved in informing EFCC of a crime in DESOPADEC and all of us involved in reporting and publicly expressing our opinions about it were roundly abused.

If Ifeajika doesn’t know, let him be told that the arrest of a public figure is valid news and the loss of humongous public money is also valid news. They are part of public accounting. These were all breaking news emanating from EFCC. Ifeajika is not abusing the EFCC for breaking the news but the media for reporting it to the public. Neither the media nor the public are involved in the arrest or detention of Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa for the alleged theft of N1.3 Trillion. Journalists perform a public and constitutional duty by reporting news and expressing opinion about public affairs. By abusing people who are not involved in the arrest or detention of Okowa, leaving the issues of the theft of N1.3 Trillion unaddressed, Ifeajika deflects and engages in mischief. Delta citizens should be deeply concerned about Ifeajika’s deflection of information and the mischief that it implies. All of us aught to commit ourselves to finding the truth in EFCC’s accusations. It must be an effort in winning back our social equilibrium and the moral compass of the state.

By activating public concern about it, we are engaging in a duty demanded by the Nigerian constitution in it’s freedom of information enactment. Mr. Ifeajika cannot stop us, no matter how hard he tries. Government can hide it’s secrets all it wants, but it is the professional duty of the journalist to find that secret and reveal it to the public.

It is therefore the journalists guaranteed professional obligation to pry into public affairs, report news and publish commentary on it. Ifeajika was taking swings at the onlookers and the media and left the alleged crime unattended. In his desperation to defend an alleged crime that has not yet been charged, he was trying too hard to make himself an accessory after the crime. He was rolling out figures and statistics, the very tools deployed by governments to lie to the public. Pray, who can vouch for the figures spewed out by Mr. Ifeajika?

The Government media team is already putting a spin on the news, telling us it is wild speculation to expect the erstwhile governor to steal as much as N1.3 Trillion. But we have had many governors charged for stealing billions of dollars of state funds. So how is this case in Delta different?

Ifeajika was careful not to broach the idea of an independent audit to verify his claims or to determine the underlying facts of the financial situation at DESOPADEC. Delta state is an open society. The staff of the agency know a few facts which they retell to family and friends. We’ve been regaled with stories of the complete breakdown of form and order in DESOPADEC for decades. We have heard stories of one man taking out N100 million every month in the agency. If it comes to it, there are people who can give EFCC all the information they need to prosecute and win criminal cases in the agency. There are people who can point out where funds are hidden.

Let it therefore be known that Petitions alone do not cause arrests and detentions for one full week if there are no tactile violations of the laws involved. Police cannot keep such a high profile citizen in detention in violation of the laws if there are no hard questions to answer arising from the petitions. We should be mindful that the EFCC are not staffed by illiterates but by professionals and that they study petitions and engage in gathering evidence before moving in to arrest and detain suspects for one week.

We have an obligation to make all public officers accountable for the huge sums that pass through government during eight year tenures. It is not their money. It is money belonging to the public, the patrimony of the more than 6 million citizens of Delta State. We will not be bamboozled or shy away from the responsibility of informing the public about their money no matter the names government call writers and reporters. We know the games they play to cover crime. They will deploy abuses and name calling to blackmail journalists into silence, from not demanding rectitude and accounting from the man under whose authority Ifeajika himself admitted that over 3.2 billion of our funds were spent.

The people of Delta State have the right to demand an independent audit of DESOPADEC finances for these past years. The state has been crawling in pain, not meeting the basic duties of state to its citizens but we continually hear of humongous sums coming into state coffers every month. The state gets poorer all the time while those who run its affairs are getting richer, fiddling with funds that they can never use in many life times.

And yet these men and women burn incense and spend eternity in religions observances, dividing their times between the Christian church, fetish rituals and the demonic practices of the occult. Enough should be enough. Let Delta State be true to its citizens.
@basilokoh.