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I do not know Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo and he does not know me. The first time I read his column was early this year when he penned a piece about the poor state of GSM services in Nigeria. It was a pedestrian piece and the only thing I noticed was that he didn't know the difference between "parlance" and "phalanx". When I showed my fifteen-year-old niece the article, she laughed and said that the writer was a pretentious dunce. So, imagine my amusement when I alighted on Mr Barkindo's column in the January 17, 2008 edition of ThisDay. In the article captioned "Kalu and the Question of Character", Mr Bello-Barkindo cast aspersions on the character of the former Governor of Abia State and leader of the PPA, Dr Orji Uzor Kalu. He started by calling him a "moral Lilliputian" and insulting his person. I wonder what gave Mr Bello-Barkindo the right to take the moral high ground and pass judgements on a man widely respected as one of Nigeria's most effective governors over the past eight years. Mr Bello-Barkindo claims that his column, "Thursday Retort" is "a child of a belief in the power of dialogue" but his tone suggested otherwise. He comes across as a publicity-hungry, pseudo-columnist trying to make a name for himself and get a lucrative "special adviser" appointment. His nom de email, abarkingdog@thisdayonline.com, suggests that Mr Bello-Barkindo sees himself as some sort of rabid attack dog who mows people down on the pages of newspapers. Dr Kalu's crime was that he wrote an article in The Sun, a popular Nigerian newspaper where he aired his views on the anti-corruption war in Nigeria. Dr Kalu's opinions represented that of most Nigerians. However, Mr Bello-Barkindo obviously does not agree. The article incensed him so much that he quickly rushed to his computer and attempted to rubbish Dr Kalu's hard-earned reputation by calling him a corrupt person. Doesn't he understand that the bedrock of democracy and civilised society is that everybody is innocent until proven guilty? I wonder how he can accuse Dr Kalu of corruption while he is yet to be convicted by any of the nation's courts. The angry columnist also suggested that Dr Kalu's reasoning was befuddled. I cannot understand how anyone can make that claim in light of all of his achievements over the years. I can still remember watching the ex-Governor talk on a VOA programme where his cogent reasoning and logical arguments elicited so much applause from listeners all over Africa and even the presenter could not hide his admiration. Mr Bello-Barkindo writes that he tried to discuss Kalu's article with a 'respectable number of people, among them women and avid readers of Nigerian newspapers but...got rebuffed by people who "don't read him."' I wonder how many people were interviewed by this intrepid columnist before he wrote put ink to paper. Twenty? Thirty? Forty? I bet he did not even bother to go that far. This is the problem with elitism. Why should the views of a small coterie of "smart" people override the views of other Nigerians who also read papers but are not part of the columnist's circle of friends? It is obvious that Mr Bello-Barkindo has no evidence to support the libelous accusations he made against Dr Orji Uzor Kalu. In order to support his views, he simply rehashed some old stories that were cooked up by the ex-Governor's detractors. One of such tales is that Dr Kalu once donated a carton of worthless paper to the University of Maidugri. Was it ever proven that Dr Kalu was involved in the matter? No! As a columnist, Mr Bello-Barkindo should know better than spread unsubstantiated rumours in the press. If he had done such a thing in a developed country, he would have been sued for libel. Mr Bello-Barkindo also goofed when he started making fun of Dr Orji Uzor Kalu's intelligence. It is amusing that the columnist who claims to be part of the Intelligentsia and has the nerve to deride Nigerian universities cannot write good English. Does this modern genius not know that "Orji" and "Peak Milk" are proper nouns that should start with capital letters and that "incidences" are different from "incidents"? In spite of his pretensions, Mr Bello-Barkindo obviously did not learn the art of punctuation in his posh high school. The simple truth is that most Abians and Nigerians know the truth. Dr Kalu is an achiever who has a stellar record as a successful governor and politician. Here is a man who became the managing director of a commercial bank before his thirtieth birthday after heading a government agency in a Northern state. As a governor, he took bold measures that alleviated the suffering of his people and formed a new political party that sprang a huge surprise during the last general elections. It is easy for people like Mr Bello-Barkindo to sit in their offices and attack people whom they know nothing about. However, my only joy is that time has shown that the Nigerian people are no longer fooled by armchair critics. Dr Orji Uzor Kalu is a true Nigerian hero. |