The Indistinguishable Dr. Otuaro and the 'Abiku' Phenomenon - Ekanpou

By: Enewaridideke Ekanpou

No mortal denies that all mortals on earth are waiters.The waiting is dictated by a search in varied colours. Truth is the primary object of every mystically awakened mind hooked up to a search for something. Only verbal  rovers given to wild and unpredictable outbursts ignore this universally acclaimed certitude.

Too handicapped to resist Soyinka's occasional invasion of every intellectual mind in varied contexts, yet without a bow to spasms of plagiarism, I must say that  in vain the exaggeratedly 'padded story' woven around High Chief Dr. Dennis Otuaro Otuaro journeys higgledy-piggledy without a  base of believability. Digitally animated by verbal rovers, the padded story journeys from mouth to mouth in the  creeks and rivers of Niger Delta to villages and cities far-flung, yet without a believable anchor.

From nowhere came the story that a contract of N50b had been awarded in the office of the Presidential Amnesty Programme without a resort to the laid-down procedures. With no company linked to this alleged N50b and how the contract was executed, there was an impetuous call on ICPC to investigate this contract on the presumption of innocence of the Amnesty boss until after a thorough investigation. Like the hippopotamus that targets the canoe-owner in the guise of looking for the dugout canoe, the aim of the figure behind the N50b contract story  was to chisel the image of the Amnesty boss beyond recognition.
It is a war against the performance radiance of Dr. Otuaro. Attritional in strategy, it  unsparingly draws on psychological warfare to release reputationally devastating blows with lethal accuracy from disguised corners.

The originator of the N50b contract story, Comrade Akpos Oweikeme, claimed membership of the defunct Niger Delta Liberation Force, which was once led by late John Togo. As allegedly claimed, Oweikeme is the secretary of the NDLF. The general reading of this wild publication is that the members of the defunct NDLF who are current beneficiaries of the PAP are verbally on a mutinous path against the Amnesty boss. The watching world was taken aback by this disgusting display of ingratitude and rebelliousness by a people against a system from which they derive sustenance through unfailing monthly remunerations and allied benefits.The defunct NDLF must be an unrepentant and ungrateful bunch of mutineers whose thirst is assuaged when the reputation of the Amnesty boss is tampered with like fishes cunningly nibbling at the baited worm strategically sunk into the river by an angler!

The baffled world experienced virtual recovery from the shock of the padded  N50b contract story when Peter Doloebiowei, Ayakeme Prapra, Sele Gbon Seigha and others who openly identified themselves as the authentic members of NDLF and correspondingly dissociated themselves from the publication credited to Comrade Akpos Oweikeme. Their counter-publication sailed into the reading public in the Vanguard newspaper of 5 October 2026 at page  37. A clearly distilled communication revealed Comrade Akpos Oweikeme had never been a member of NDLF in this incarnation and would not even be accommodated as a member of NDLF in his next incarnation. For the authentic members of NDLF the padded wild publication was digitally created by Oweikeme.

The person called Comrade Akpos Oweikeme is  a faceless non-existent person digitally originated by forces waging a baseless subterranean war against the widely applauded performance records of Dr. Otuaro in the Presidential Amnesty Programme. The wind has blown at last, revealing the faces behind the destructive hurricane. The targeted tar on the reputation of the defunct authentic NDLF and on the reputation of Dr. Otuaro has been denied a place of habitation or anchorage for reputational mud-haulage. The fact alone that 243 Niger Deltans  on offshore scholarships have been sent abroad to pursue postgraduate studies in different fields is enough clearance for Dr. Otuaro whom Comrade Oweikeme impulsively seeks to crucify reputationally.

The targeted reputational crucifixion of Dr. Otuaro is a product of  peerless performance as the Amnesty boss with a visionary radiance and difference. Only performance radiance attracts darkness and crucifixion. Jesus Christ was once crucified yesterday because he was stainless in his devotion to his earthly ministry. Only a great man, only a peerless performer in office, would attract failed mutinies at reputational crucifixion, as it was with Dr. Otuaro recently. In this modern world of enlightenment targeted reputational crucifixion of recognised performers in office would not be afforded a space to thrive because it was only in the age of Jesus Christ people stood idly by and watched a great achiever crucified on the cross, only waiting to be resurrected on the third day.This generation would not  accommodate such theological anachronism in the light of modern civilisation no matter their eschatological convictions. Dr. Otuaro should be calm and comforted that the failed reputational crucifixion targeted at him came because he has admirably discharged his duties as the Amnesty boss with a characteristic  performance radiance never known in the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

The forces of darkness over which Gabriel Okara literarily activated a search for 'IT' led by Okolo in his novel THE VOICE, are still very much alive in this generation. These marked forces of darkness feel destabilised, suffocated, perturbed, chastised and enfeebled by the reform-consolidated approach of Dr. Otuaro to the business of the Presidential Amnesty Programme. In varied forms these dark forces emerge from unsuspecting corners to wreak havoc on the reformer of the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

Dr Otuaro is the modern-day 'Abiku'; he is ideologically, traditionally, mystically and intellectually equipped  to lead the Presidential Amnesty Programme to the desired promised land of sustained transformation.The current Amnesty boss would always constitute a positive chastiser of the dark forces verbally waging war against the Amnesty office. However the dark forces vary their methodologies  - strategically journeying between attrition and psychological warfare in lethal coalition -  Dr Otuaro would not be distracted, even if fractionally. The dark forces will know whenever they see Dr Otuaro; he is ideologically prepared to reform the PAP and would constantly chastise them with good programmes executed until they are too wearied to engage their war of attrition from every available corner of the world. Abikus all over the world are known for their indomitability however the ritual of blandishments enacted by their parents, though Dr. Otuaro contextually walks on the positive lane of the known Abikus without a stray to the other side.

We do not need any awakening from the great philosopher Timiebi Maika to know that the dark forces do not want PAP to grow; the dark forces do not want Tantita to grow; the dark forces do not want Tompolo to grow from strength to strength in his national engagements. The positive forces exemplified by the 'Abiku' in Otuaro do not want  the dark forces to grow and take over everywhere  as weeds would  a piece of land either. The Abiku in Dr Otuaro shall chastise them positively until they understand and accept the power of transformation like a generation seeking digital alliance and connectivity. However these dark forces evilly devise to distract great performers, Dr Otuaro shall trouble them endlessly as a positive interventionist counter-force until his reforms take the shape ofa rock. Though in a positively different allegorical sense, Otuaro's reform-based reasoning parallels the  'Abiku' of Soyinka's creation,  pridefully stuck to a declaration of conviction: 'I am the squirrel teeth, cracked The riddle of the palm. Remember  This, and dig me deeper still into  The god's swollen foot'.

Comfortably, with conviction, one can therefore say that as it is with the 'Abiku' -  literarily animated and clothed by Soyinka as a creature antithetical to manipulation, repression and suppression - so shall it be metaphorically with all the forces that geologically form the bedrock of Otuaro in his vision to transform the Presidential Amnesty Programme. The positive modern-day Abiku  he is, Dr Otuaro shall always rise above the attritional manipulations of all the dark forces capriciously let loose from time to time against his visible genuine achievements in the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

Dr. Ekanpou writes from Akparemogbene, Delta State