OGBONNA NWUKE, SCHOLARSHIP AND I, part 1

Not only have I watched Hon. Nwuke Ogbonna dishonour himself by allowing his boys tell fat lies about the so-called scholarship thing and using my name to sell their lies, I am equally shocked at how low the man stooped when he actually told his boys that he is my benefactor. He even gave them his photo album where he has a photo of me and him and used that to narrate how he has been helping me. He even claimed he paid my school fees and alleged that I have no education at the same time. Gosh!!!
At first, when I started reading the anthology of trash from his copy-and-paste political slaves, I didn’t want to believe that the man himself would be the brain behind that unintelligent misadventure, to the extent of saying he paid me money to conduct his scholarship. I left him a WhatsApp message asking him to clarify where, when and how he became my benefactor, but up till this time, he has not responded. But I was wrong, the man has not only joined his pigs in the mud play, he is the man of the match. As unfortunate as that is, every fire in a slum, if not extinguished at the point of sparkle and flaming, may result to a wildfire. It is on this note that I am using this piece to put the pig farmer and his pigs back to their pen.
To put the records straight:

FIRST BLOOD:

I drew first blood in my ‘battle’ with Mr. Nwuke when in 2010-2011, I started a campaign called THE TRUE FACE OF ETCHE, a highlight of the marginalisation and neglect Etche was passing through under the Rivers State Government. That campaign included pictures, videos and publications. Within days the campaign received a massive support from Etche people. Mr. Nwuke on the other hand was an official of Rivers State Government trying so hard, but unsuccessfully to defend his boss. That campaign gave birth to a lot of political consciousness and movements that have and continue to question the status-quo in Etche. That movement is responsible for the involvement of young people in Etche politics today and I have no regret in my involvement in it. It was this never-before confrontation that drew the battle line. The new consciousness meant I had drawn the first blood. It came with threats, machinations and all sorts of slander, for those who taught there was something to avenge. The rest is history.

ACADEMIC RECORDS:

As pedestrian as the allegation that I am not schooled and the allegation at the same time that Mr. Nwuke saw me through school is, I have to step-down to his level to put the records straight. Agreed, I am not where I set out to be academically at this age, but I don't think I am doing that badly to warrant an attack in that direction. I don't have a PhD yet, but that should not be a reason for someone to attack me, especially if you are someone who most likely is incapable of aspiring to that height yourself.

1. As it stands, I am more educated than Ogbonna Nwuke. I have a verifiable OND in Banking and Finance, HND in Accounting, ICAN in view, a lot of personal successes in research work and have been accepted into a Masters Degree program in Entrepreneurship at the Prestigious University of Liverpool, England. And to add, I have verifiable certificates, course and school mates, plus placement documents, something I doubt Mr. Nwuke can boast of.

2. I got my HND in 2008. At the time of my graduation, Mr. Nwuke had no contacts whatsoever with me and could not have played a role in the life of someone who didn’t exist in his world.

3. I am the one who has made tremendous sacrifices to help the career of Mr. Nwuke and those sacrifices include spending my own personal funds to organize a scholarship scheme for him in other to save him from shame. Details shall follow.

SCHOLARSHIP

In April of 2012, Mr. Nwuke attended a convention put together by the group PROUD TO BE ETCHE as a result of the group’s crusade for accountability and responsibility from public office holders. After being seriously grilled by participants at the event, Mr. Nwuke, according to his words decided to ask the help of the group in putting together a scholarship scheme for 18 people at N100,000 per student for a period of 4yrs and extra in the case of students whose courses spanned beyond 4yrs. The group kicked against that, arguing that it amounted to only N1,800,00 per annum which translated to nothing when compared with the annual budgetary N150M Constituency project fund. Mr Nwuke replied by saying that this wasn’t going to be funded through the constituency purse and that this was a charitable effort of his which he was about to give to the Anglican Communion through The Rt. Revd Precious Nwala, Bishop of Etche Anglican Diocese, but is now reverting to the group. There and then, the group, in a statement presented by Mr. Chimezie Onwugbuta agreed with Mr. Nwuke that the said scholarship scheme would never be referenced politically and would never be seen as anything related to the office of House of Representatives. As a group, PROUD TO BE ETCHE accepted to help Mr. Nwuke organize the scholarship and resolved to do it for him free of charge- Mr. Nwuke was to provide logistics and the group was to work for him for free.

In subsequent meetings, Mr. Nwuke talked about starting a foundation and that that was the idea behind the scholarship thing. Committees were set and work was started. The Scholarship test was fixed for August 4, 2012 and that was the point where Mr. Nwuke disappeared. Between April and the night before the Test, it was from one story to another from Mr. Nwuke. All correspondences and pleas to him to release funds to print forms, publicize the event, transport materials, contact resource persons and produce question papers, secure a venue + other logistics, did not yield any result. We were faced with either abandoning the process and shaming Mr. Nwuke, or saving his ass. We chose to save his ass. Resource persons decided to set questions for free and I proceeded to bear 100% of the cost of the process, without the knowledge of even his daughter who was working with us or the knowledge of any other person outside Umeri Hanson, as I didn’t want anyone to take advantage of that and ridicule Mr. Nwuke. Myself and some close friends in the group decided to take the task head-on. We starved on days we had nothing, and fed on days we could provide for ourselves. Every single penny that was spent on that Test was from my private pocket. In-fact, before the test date, we had become fed up with Mr. Nwuke’s antics that I was now talking with his brother Mr. Zubby Nwuke to help us convince his brother to keep to his words. It was so bad that it was only on the night before the test, being August 3, 2012, that Mr. Zubby Nwuke sent me the sum of N240,000 as refunds for all I had spent in the process.

Ladies and gentlemen, which serious minded individual with love for his people and his project would release funds the night before his own event? If I had waited for him to release the funds, or even mentioned to the group at that time that he was yet to fund the programme, would there have been any scholarship today? Of course, the answer is no.

But the above represents just a fraction of the misery Mr. Nwuke put us through in the course of the program. After the test and a very thorough screening exercise by dedicated Etche people, we were faced with another problem of payment to the successful students. The academic year was almost gone and Mr. Nwuke was not ready and when he came, he wanted to bring politics to it, but we refused and that was the first open conflict between the group and Mr. Nwuke. He insisted on making payment on the same day and in the same venue the then Governor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi was to visit Etche for a townhall meeting. We refused and insisted that our agreement that this would not be used to retire the Etche-Omuma Federal Constituency fund must stand. I was at the forefront of that insistence. He finally bowed to us, but not without joining the payment with another political function. By the end of that year (2012), the first payment was made and after that, Mr. Nwuke disappeared.

Faced with the dilemma of stranded students and persistent phone calls, I searched for Mr. Nwuke personally and with the group PROUD TO BE ETCHE, without success. We held countless meetings and devised countless strategies to track him down, but the man was as slippery as the tail of a monkey soaked in okro soup. From voicecalls to text messages, we were far from results, until one day we decided that he should transfer all of the funds to the group and allow us manage the scholarship programme. At this time, some of the students were already finishing their third year and entering into their final year and all Mr. Nwuke had paid was funds for 1yr.

Meanwhile, in the student’s 3rd year of study, Mr. Nwuke was yet to make any further payments. The program was owing a backlog of funds for 2 academic years. We got him on one occasion during that period and he agreed to give us a cheque to offset the debts. He issued a GTB cheque for N3,600,000 in my name and we happily rushed off, informed the students that they were going to be paid, only to get to the bank to discover that it was dud check. The cheque bounced!
I cried that day and when I got back to him, he promised he was going to transfer funds to that account, but he never did on all of the occasions i returned to the bank. The Banker that I presented the cheque to told me that Mr. Nwuke has another account with them, that he didn’t want to pay that money, that if he wanted, he could have issued the cheque on another of his GTB accounts where he had money. He advised me to go home and rest.

It is important to note that at the time Mr. Nwuke was doing this, there was already a law criminalizing issuance of dud cheques and that could have landed Mr. Nwuke in serious mess if we had taken the cheque to the EFCC. I was again faced with telling the students that that the cheque bounced and risking angry people making a mincemeat of Ogbonna Nwuke, or managing the situation and saving his ass again. For the second time, I chose to save his ass. That was notwithstanding that he had already told his aides at the point in time, that he has given me a cheque to pay the students. Rumuors were flying again on how PROUD TO BE ETCHE had squandered a non-existent scholarship fund. One student was notorious in his inquiries, but do you blame him, a young man whose hopes had been raised by the promise of a politician, even though he was not privileged to the under currents, Princewill Azubuike harassed the living hell out of any leader of PROUD TO BE ETCHE he had access to.

Finally, sometime in 2014, we were able to catch him again, at this time, both students and members of the group had taken Mr. Nwuke to the cleaners on this subject matter. Of his 11 aides, about 9 had resigned and joined in criticizing him. I kept my cool and privately continued to push and prick his conscience in a manner that irritated him. At that point, I couldn’t stop, because the process had already begun and all of our reputations were on the line. Like I said earlier, some people had even started accusing the group of embezzling funds for the program, not knowing that the group had not received a dime from Mr. Nwuke. The group moved to defend itself and so did individuals. We convened more meetings and through the wisdom of some senior members of the group, we journeyed that slippery road gracefully. When we got hold of him, we had done an audit of the students at this point and presented him with a list of students who were still in school...and yes, some people had stopped halfway at that point. And this time, we suggested and insisted that the the outstanding which had climbed to 3yrs now, be paid to the students individually and that the students be present when the cheques are written. Mr. Nwuke agreed to the audited list, of course it was easier as it meant paying less money, agreed to paying directly to the students, but refused to clear all 3yrs debts. He went for 2yrs for people still in school and 1 yr for those who had stopped 1yr earlier.

The cheques were issued in his house to the students and Mr. Hope Amadi and myself witnessed for the group, PROUD TO BE ETCHE. Pictures were taken and I heard clips were sent to TV stations and our images were used as part of an APC promotion news item. Not only was that disrespectful to us as individuals, it was against the agreement Mr. Nwuke reached with us in April of 2012. But we kept calm, we were consoled that some of the funds were being released, in what at this point had obviously proven to be a sham and insincere attempt at granting scholarship to financially challenged people.

Was that the end of the drama? No! After so much persuasion, we agreed to accept a cheque for N100,000 from Mr. Nwuke which he called ‘’TRANSPORT FARE’’. Of the cheques issued that day, at least 5 turned out dud and bounced! Extra efforts had to be made to push them through on subsequent dates. The ‘’TRANSPORT FARE’’ cheque was also a dud cheque. It bounced when presented at the counter. I still have both cheques with me.

Since that day no other payment has been made to the students, at least not to my knowledge or that of the group PROUD TO BE ETCHE. In my record and that of the group, the scholarship scheme ended inconclusively, and i must add, disgracefully to everyone of us who tried so hard to make it a success.

MDG KEKE-NAPEP:

The other battle between me and Mr. Nwuke reached it’s crescendo when on December 21, 2015 at 9:57am, I wrote an Open Letter to him titled ‘’THERE SHOULD BE A LIMIT TO HOW A MAN INSULTS HIS OWN PEOPLE’’. That was a reaction to the 150 tricycles from the Millennium Development Goals program Mr. Nwuke received on behalf of Etche people, but instead of distributing it, he fraudulently converted them to his personal properties. He held the tricycles for 3yrs in his house (transferring them from his Old GRA house to his Trans Amadi house, wiped-off the insignia of the MDG and replaced it with his name and proceeded to issue about 11 of them to people who stood as witnesses for him in his Elections Petitions Tribunal matter in Abuja. I called him out on this and he didn’t take it lightly. My letter had exposed him to the public and he was loosing public support in his re-election bid. He called my mobile phone and expressed displeasure over the expository letter. Since then, he and his boys who have nothing to campaign with, have been grappling at stones and nails, seeking to malign me. Knowing how impossible that is, they have resorted to blackmailing my academic records. What this bombastic nonentities do not know is that I am even more educated than their principal. That we do not sing our own academic praise like they do with their unverifiable ‘papers’, doesn’t mean we don’t have a voice.

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP/ENCOUNTERS:

There is absolutely no personal relationship between Ogbonna Nwuke and I. The first time i visited him was when he was residing at No. 1 Igbodo street, Old GRA Port Harcourt. He had invited me to his house on three good occasions, but i had declined with excuses of a busy schedule and when I eventually visited him on the 29th of December, I made sure I had company. I went there with Mr. Nwiyi Success, my brother and friend who is also part of the PROUD TO BE ETCHE MOVEMENT. We met Mr. Nwuke in the presence of his family, friends and aides. Barr. Chigozie Emem who as at that day hadn’t resigned as his aide, offered us seats and soft drinks. We sat and discussed briefly outside his house and left, but before we left, he took me to his car and gave me N20,000 and wished me a happy new year. I said thank you and left.

The second time, I visited him was when my official assignment in Abuja with two of my professional colleagues coincided with an APC event in the same city. Almost every hotel was fully booked and prices were skyrocketing. We were stranded and thoughts of the Obio-Akpor embassy came to us, the other of my colleague who is also from Etche and I decided that we should call Mr. Nwuke and ask after the Etche-Omuma Embassy. We called him and told him that we are stranded, that his party people have booked all the hotels and caused an increase in prices, that he should provide us our own embassy. He laughed and directed us to meet him at a Hotel in Abuja, where Etche APC people were sharing their own money. We (myself, and my two colleagues) met him there and drove to his house together. After pleasantries and light entertainment, his brother Mr. Zubby Nwuke gave us N100,000. We called Mr. Kelvin Inwere who assisted us get discounts in a hotel.

Outside the scenarios above, Mr. Nwuke and I have no other dealings, financial and otherwise, not even a penny or sharing a drink. If Mr. Nwuke will be sincere to himself, he would recall telling people that I prefer to relate with Mr. Allwell Onyesoh as my brother and friend, than relate with him. That Allwell and I are friends is no secret and not even political differences will break that. And I don’t care how that makes any other person who considers himself Allwell’s internal party rival feel. To add, most of my conversations with Mr. Nwuke, voice, text, or face-face are recorded and can be presented for further proof, if need be.

I will stop here and wait for them to open their gutter mouths again, then they will be shocked at what will follow next.

You brought this thing here too...?politicians