It was the inimitable playwright, Ola Rotimi, who, in his epic play ,the Gods are not to blame, declared unequivocally that in the gathering of fowls, a cockroach can never be innocent. Put in a different way, you can never obtain justice in the hands of your enemies or oppressors. When once you are tagged as guilty, even the World Court at the Hague can not save you.
Sam Amadi, a self-styled policy analyst whose below average performance as the Chairman of Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission is still haunting him, has found a new job in his home state,Imo. The new job is to alert the people of the state of all the “misdeeds” of the Hope Uzodimma administration . Even if the governor continues to pay gratuities to retirees, something that had not happened in the state in the last two decades before Uzodimma wiped their tears, Sam Amadi will still condemn it. To him ,it would have made more meaning if he allowed them to die. In this court of his, Uzodimma can never be innocent.
It is against this sadistic background that one would evaluate what Sam Amadi did with the recent statistics released by the Nigerian Human Rights commission under its latest dashboard for the month of January 2025. While he quoted the body correctly that the South East has the least number of incidents of rights violation among the six geopolitical zones, he viciously twisted the statistics by saying that Imo state was third in the number of killings recorded by states. Interestingly, he conceded that he didn’t know the nature of the killings.
His infantile attempt at lying with statistics reminds me of 1986 in one of our statistics lectures. We were taught that while statistics may be factual, you can actually use it to deceive or lie as Sam did. For instance, we had four female engineering students in the next block, and two of them were pregnant. One of us raised the issue that 50 per cent of female engineering students in our school had taken in. On the face value, it was correct, but in actual fact, only two students were involved. The number upon which the statistical data was based was not released. It was upon that premise that Sam raised the alarm that Imo was the top three states in Nigeria where killings were raging and that the Imo state government was impotent in combating the menace. What was the goal? Simple! To run Governor Hope Uzodimma down.
Now , an impartial observer, not belonging to the tribe of fowls sitting in judgment against a cockroach, will discover a totally different result from the statistics released by the human rights body. In truth, the four top states that recorded more violent killings are Borno, Plateau, Zamfara, and Nassarawa. In terms of the highest crimes, Lagos remained top.Delta,Kaduna,Benue,Adamawa, and Kaduna recorded more violent deaths with no mention of Imo State.
Now, coming to the analogy of the female engineering students, the number of recorded killings in Imo during the period under review was 18. While I am totally abhorrent of any blood shed,while as a Christian I respect the sanctity of human life, the number upon which Sam Amadi raised this alarm is not near anything recorded in the aforementioned states. As he himself admitted, we are yet to ascertain whether these deaths occurred as a result of extra judicial killings, accidents, murder or even manslaughter. His narrative is to paint Imo black as a state with human rights violations under Hope Uzodimma.
What is his motive in demarketing the current administration in Imo State. He has made it obvious in many fora. He wants to be the next governor, and the most pragmatic strategy he could think of is to attack the government of the day. As Sam has also admitted in many write ups, he has a large sized grudge against Uzodimma for sidelining him from his government. Another is ego. He believes in his warped thinking that he is better than Uzodimma and therefore ought to have been the governor.
But such wishful thinking reminds us of our nursery rhymes, which stated that if wishes were horses, beggars would have had a swell time. Unfortunately, politics is not a game for day dreamers. Twice, Sam Amadi had tried to be governor, and twice, he didn’t even cross the primaries. Has that taught him any hard lessons? Certainly not. Otherwise, he would not have embarked on this futile journey of trying to destroy Uzodimma before he became the governor. This gambling of his has gone too far, and I blame those who have been egging him on.
I would have thought that a man who claimed to be serious and brimming with ideas would dedicate this so-called Thursday Democracy Series into telling Imo in practical terms how he can make their lives better. Devoting so much time into fault finding, blame games, and pulling him down theatrics is now grating on the nerves of Imo people. Indeed, more serious contestants are in the units, wards, and local governments consulting with party faithful on the way forward. Certainly not these shenanigans that lead nowhere.
A few days ago, he painted a gloomy picture of how Uzodimma would soon become a lame duck governor abandoned by his loyalists because his administration is “transactional” The measured response from wide range of stakeholders should be enough for him as a sign post of what to expect in future. But it was unconscionable for him to have lied with statistics just to score a cheap political point. Since he claims to be a lawyer and academic, he ought to know better.
Indeed, instead of hiding under the nebulous figures from his likes in the so called human rights bodies, he should go straight to any office of the police commissioner to obtain verified documents on the level of crime in each state, Imo inclusive. Just a few weeks ago, the Imo State Police Command released comprehensive data on criminal activities in the state between 2020 when Hope Uzodimma assumed office till now, which is five years after.
An examination of the data actually showed that the crime rate is dropping in Imo State, contrary to the submission of alarmists like Sam Amadi. It was also obvious from the records that the successes were achieved due to the support of the state government and improved policing. Twisting statistics to the contrary will never assist Sam Amadi in his governorship bid.
At any rate, as a man who has publicly declared his interest to run for the seat being occupied currently by Senator Hope Uzodimma, Sam Amadi has completely lost credibility as a public affairs analyst. He is biased. He has an interest and therefore can never command integrity. He can not be a judge in his own case. Let him rescue himself from the ghost facade of a human rights activist or policy analyst and fully join the fray. It is only then that, Imo people will take him seriously as a man who can win a councillorship election.
Udemba is an Owerri based public affairs analyst.