Babs Ajayi Sunday, August 19, 2012
Babsajayi@yahoo.com
Gatineau, Quebec, Canada


OKUPE: THE RETURN OF A RABBLE ROUSER

He is back. He is here. He is the new media assistant at the palace of plunder in Abuja. This is his second coming, but this time he is a sidekick and an errand boy with a mission, a mission that is absolutely impossible because the people are wiser now. He is the new bulldog that will take up critics and writers who have been bold enough to challenge his new boss and have been telling him to go away and take his nightmarish ways with him. His master knew he needed to do something to shield himself from fire and condemnations relating to his poor actions and terrible inactions; he needed someone to respond to the attacks without facts and without focus on the truth. In fact, he has no truth in him and knew the evidence against him are just overwhelming and solid, so he needed a rabble-rouser, a noise maker, an attack dog, a castrated animal who can bark very well - he does not have to bite but he should be able to attack the real and perceived enemies.


The palace of doom has every reason to worry considering the calls from around the nation for the looters it harbours to leave and return to Yenagoa without delay. If you entrust your property and treasures to a man and found out that the man is a thief and a lover of gifts, then you have to do your very best to protect your wealth and get rid of the criminal as soon as possible. But the palace is determined to keep the plundering going and to find a loose canon who can fend off attacks and who can go after writers, critics, opponents, and those labelled the enemies of his new master. These are tough times for Aso Rock and paying lip service to recovering stolen loots from the cabal of petroleum subsidy thieves and getting them prosecuted has been the action of choice.

Enter Mr. Okupe the new media assistant who will defend and defend and deny to the very end. Okupe's new title: Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, a far cry and a demotion, but that is fine for anyone who just wants to be relevant and who is desperate to be part of the cabal. It appears Okupe is happy to be back after many years in the cold since the first term of President Olusegun Obasanjo, who appointed him as Aso Rock's Press Secretary and eventually threw him out after accusing him of various acts of impropriety. And trust OBJ, he never hesitate to expose anyone who try to outsmart him and outdo him, or anyone who will be bold enough to use his name without his knowledge to curry favour here and there. But Okupe is back and desperate to justify his inclusion and new coming. He is more likely to do a 'better job' of fighting off the opposition and critics. He would like to be seen as an "attack lion" and not an attack dog, but unfortunately for Okupe all we have seen so far is a barking dog. The dog is never going to grow into a lion because that will defy the rules of nature and the order of things.

Okupe was brought into the doomed palace for a purpose and there is no how he will be able to recalibrate, rebuild or re-brand a terribly damaged product. He actually lacks the competences to recalibrate anything. But Aso Rock is not after the truth and is least interested in people who will tell them the game was up and the time has come to get out, and that was why people of the shade and shape of Doyin Okupe was needed. Okupe told a local television station that his job was to engage the public in discussions around the achievements of Mr. Jonathan's administration! Okupe had since started his discussions agenda by attacking everyone who has been criticizing his boss and telling him the truth about his failures and crooked, selfish and un-presidential activities.

I am prepared to discuss with Mr. Okupe on far more important issues that concerns him and his own image. I would like to engage Okupe in discussions around the N600 million Benue State contract scam. What can Okupe tell me about that contract and the N600 million involved? Is it true that he has a pending case at the EFCC about the N600 million contract? By the way, is it true that his company, Messrs Value trust Investments Ltd abandoned the road construction contract awarded to it after collecting over Ni billion from the Benue State government? Is it true that the Benue State government was only able to recover the sum of N55.2 million from Okupe's company after he abandoned the job? Doyin Okupe should be open and eager to discuss the facts relating to his nearly one month in EFCC detention between July and August 2006 and engage the masses of our nation in this matter. It does not look like Okupe has cleared his name in the sordid Benue State case and needs to clear his name before going out there to bark at the opponents of his paymaster.

It does not really matter to many of us who was appointed or brought into Aso Rock. This is Aso Rock remember! The place stinks, it is doomed, it is a den of thieves and it is where a few are living off the sweat of 100 million Nigerians and helping themselves to everything they can lay their hands on. Adding one, two, three or four more miscreant(s) to the palace will not spoil or dent anything. It is business as usual and it is very obvious the only thing that is important to Mr. Jonathan at the moment is not doing what is right but defending all the wrongs and criminal activities inside Aso Rock and his hugely corrupt PDP government. Man Friday is here again. He will do anything to defend his paymaster. He is prepared to do what those currently responsible for media and public relations - the professionals who will not sell their conscience despite managing the image of a doomed palace - are unwilling to do knowing there will be life after Aso Rock. He will leave his mark with brutal attacks on real and imaginary enemies. He will stir up fire here and there and will not be able to put the fire out. He will accuse people and attack their persons while ignoring the facts. His mission is to take attention away from the facts, the truth and the problem, and give his master some breathing room.

wesley80: For a sec there I thought I was reading an analysis of the Gbawe-Tinubu relationship! Oops did I just say that?

wesley80: For a sec there I thought I was reading an analysis of the Gbawe-Tinubu relationship! Oops did I just say that?

wesley80: For a sec there I thought I was reading an analysis of the Gbawe-Tinubu relationship! Oops did I just say that?

It does not really matter to many of us who was appointed or brought into Aso Rock. This is Aso Rock remember! The place stinks, it is doomed, it is a den of thieves and it is where a few are living off the sweat of 100 million Nigerians and helping themselves to everything they can lay their hands on. Adding one, two, three or four more miscreant(s) to the palace will not spoil or dent anything.

wesley80: For a sec there I thought I was reading an analysis of the Gbawe-Tinubu relationship! Oops did I just say that?

Chubhie: I respect Gbawe's energy,passion and doggedness and he has a sound mind but where i seem to have a lil problem with some of his write up is that he vilifies anything PDP and uses another hand to paint ACN as the knight in shining armor....For some neutrals as me, who sees most politicians as same regardless of party affiliations am bound to have problems with some of his arguments.

At the end of the day, most arguments is based between us-PDP and them-ACN so tis a lil difficult for independent minds to have a say without being branded a card carrying member of ACN or the notorious lappy killer squad.

After series of denials that he was being investigated by the EFCC for allegedly defrauding Benue and Imo state governments, senior special assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan on public affairs, Doyin Okupe has finally opened up and in fact opted for a settlement with the Benue state government.

iReports-ng.com had exclusively reported the story that Mr Okupe is enmeshed in a multi-million naira contract scam. While the presidential spokesman was making frantic efforts to deny the report, fresh facts emerged that he was not only being investigated by the EFCC over the Benue contract scam but that he had actually being detained for four weeks in the agency’s cell over a similar case in Imo state.

Okupe who has obviously come under pressures especially from the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN which last week called for his sack, decided to open up to some of his friends who he approached to help launch damage control campaigns in the media.

According to one of his friends who spoke to iReports-ng.com on the condition of anonymity, Okupe has not only repented of denying his face-off with the law over contract scams, he has gone ahead to brief a Lagos based lawyer, Yemi Gbonegun to represent him in a settlement arrangement he is negotiating with the Benue state government over the contract scam.

A lawyer in Gbonegun’s chambers confirmed the development to iReports-ng.com. The lawyer said the presidential aide was indeed awarded a rural road contract in Benue during the administration of Mr George Akume through Okupe’s company, Messrs Value Trust Investment Ltd.

Okupe’s decision to enter into negotiations with the Benue state government through an arbitration, a close source in the presidency revealed, was to block the EFCC which had initially denied the existence of such a case, from pressing criminal charges against him. The ACN had warned EFCC against cover up while the agency’s chairman Ibrahim Lamorde had during the week obtained an updated status reports on the two cases against Okupe to brief Mr Jonathan should he be called upon to brief the president on the raging controversy.

iReports-ng.com also gathered that in the coming days, many public relations consultants already hired and paid millions of naira by Mr Okupe will hit newspaper houses with reports that will paint Okupe as an asset to President Jonathan rather than a liabilty. His image minders will also attempt to portray the contract scam as a civil case.

To sustain that, they will sell to the public through the media that disputes arose over the contract because there was a change of baton between Akume who awarded the contract to Okupe and incumbent Governor Gabriel Suswam who seeks to recover the millions of Benue funds Okupe bolted with.

sheyguy: I thought the focus of this thread is suppose to be Okukpe. . . But it turns out to the OP, Gbawe.

sheyguy: Okukpe's scandal with benue state sure isn't an idea, neither is it a person.

Gbawe:

Man mi, PointB is one of the Nairalanders very famous for slow and dull thinking.

Gbawe:

Man mi, PointB is one of the Nairalanders very famous for slow and dull thinking. No need showing him what his dull brain missed . He is exposed here daily for being slow. I have to credit him for being vacuously resilient and thick-skinned enough to keep coming back with totally idiotic submissions in an attempt to compensate for his obvious intellectual deficit.

Okupe has , more or less , now admitted to being a crook under investigation. The association of this crook with the Presidency , as another disastrous trend for a failing nation, is the real issue here. Yet dullards and loser , with nothing between their ears, focus on their petty obsessions. Slice or dice it however you want, the Presidency has goofed again by showing it is only interested in running a deceitful government that welcomes every miscreant so far as said miscreant can help to prolong the continuous movement of the 'gravy train'.

Demdem: This thread is about a self-confessed crook, Okupe. I wonder why these sycophants enjoys derailing threads

sheyguy: Good governance in a developing nation like ours is definitely a great idea, and any obstacle to good governance sure deserves a mention. Okupe may be a person, but i still find it hard to decipher how some people can't see the connection here, especially when we consider Okupe's past record.
Some even choose to see one party as the opposite of another, a clear sign of their obsession . . . May God help us all, Amen.

sheyguy: Good governance in a developing nation like ours is definitely a great idea, and any obstacle to good governance sure deserves a mention. Okupe may be a person, but i still find it hard to decipher how some people can't see the connection here, especially when we consider Okupe's past record.
Some even choose to see one party as the opposite of another, a clear sign of their obsession . . . May God help us all, Amen.

kasiem: at the bolded, don't u think that destructive criticisms can be a cog in the wheel of good governance? So is it bad to stop it bad to stop it by make mockery of Gbawe?

Demdem: Whats destructive in criticising a self-confessed thief Do u guys have brains at all?

Demdem: Whats destructive in criticising a self-confessed thief Do u guys have brains at all?

Gbawe:

They are as clueless as the messiah they worship. Absolutely nothing between their ears.