In search of the Real Professor Omo Omoruyi

By

Okechukwu E. Asia

Boston, MA, USA

ifyandokey@yahoo.com

 

 

The first sign that a public intellectual is in a classroom is an attempt to instill discipline, reverence and order. Once, a public intellectual asked a new class, “If there are any fools in this class, will you please stand up.” To his surprise, a student stood up moments after. The public intellectual asked the student, “What made you think you are a fool?” The student laughed for a while and then replied, “I do not think I am a fool. I just hate to see you stand up there all by yourself.” – Rudolf Okonkwo

 

I can’t stop laughing. After reading a speech by Professor Omo Omoruyi published in the Daily Sun newspaper last Monday March 28, 2005 where Omo Omoruyi reportedly revealed IBB’s game plan for 2007, I laughed. And I can’t stop laughing. Here he goes again was my only immediate response.

 

As the countdown to 2007 approaches, weird characters are beginning to emerge from their often-irrelevant corners to make foolish speeches on Nigerian politics. They claim to be experts in democratic dispensation and scholars of Nigerian external affairs. They target a likely candidate to go out to make speeches on behalf that candidate even when the candidates disassociate themselves from these characters. Omo Omoruyi is one of these weird characters. He has hitherto taken it upon himself to become the new campaign manager for IBB and make speeches on his behalf when he and IBB only met each other in 2004 after many years not speaking to each other. Even when he has become an outcast in IBB’s kitchen and any mention of his name around IBB provokes anger and resentment. He is still working harder to become relevant in 2007 and beyond.

 

For those who do not know, Omo Omoruyi is a self-professed expert in political education, whose so-called Center for Democratic Studies (CDS) miseducated thousands of Nigeria’s political elite. As many Nigerians question where his loyalty lies in the current dispensation, the bigger question for him is where has the political scientist left his pride?  Omo Omoruyi prides himself as the expert that helps former military officers to join politics. He prides himself as an expert in campaign management, and he is designing a platform on which to launch himself back to political relevance. He is conveniently forgetting the past, ignoring his missteps, neglecting loyalty, and paying attention to grabbing power and relevance. He is repainting and repackaging himself as IBB’s spokes person and calling himself an IBB’s close friend. His passion for romantic pu blic space makes him an ideal intellectual whose quest for political relevance supersedes reason and unconditional loyalty.

 

In Omo Omoruyi there is no question of legitimacy of his professional authority or competing understanding of professional accountability. With zero credibility, he whitewashes the truth with ease. His yearning for a return to the throne of vanity drives him to no end. He has misstepped before, stabbing the principal in the back. And announced to the world how he fought the principal to release the June 12th election results. He abandoned the principal and went to an exile in Boston, USA only to turn back and spoke blasphemously against the principal. Most recently he was singing and dancing to Obasanjo’s tunes and was searching for an Igbo or South-south president. It is obvious that he is not content with his failure a s preacher of political empowerment.

 

Omo Omoruyi’s last week ranting in Minna, Niger State parading himself as the legitimate IBB campaign manager is appalling and embarrassing and called into question his mental state. Even in his own Local Government Area – Oredo in Edo State, his popularity is in the lowest bottom. When he ventured to run for a vacant electoral seat in Edo State he received the least votes with only 173 votes of the total votes cast in his home ward. With this result, where is Omo Omoruyi getting his guts to attempt to manage a national campaign when he was not able to manage his own campaign? I hope this self-professed campaign expert is not fooling the people in Minna, those inside IBB’s campaign.

 

Back to his days in Boston, he lighted more fire that is burning long after he had moved back to Nigeria. He brought tremendous pain to so many families and friends here in Boston. These friends helped him when he arrived in Boston to begin his life in exile. He is well known with turning against the people who had helped him along the way. With a man of this character I seriously question his presence in Minna, Niger State of Nigeria. And what does Omo Omoruyi want?

 

In Igboland, we say a man does not spit and lick back. Omo Omoruyi has been spitting and licking back. Since he left Nigeria for America on his self-imposed exile he has written so many derogatory things about IBB and others who helped him in the past. That make me wonder what Omo Omoruyi has up in his sleeves this time or is Omo Omoruyi packing up his shit with his own mouth? You be the judge.

 

Okechukwu E. Asia

Boston, MA, USA

ifyandokey@yahoo.com