Sam Omatseye, the Editorial chairman of The Nation Newspapers,Lagos,will be at the Obafemi Awolowo University,OAU,Ile Ife,Osun State on January 29th. He has been invited by the Faculty of Arts of the institution to deliver it’s second Faculty of Arts distinguished alumni lecture.
Themed :How to make a Democrat,and to be chaired by the Ekiti State governor,Biodun Oyebanji,Omatseye will also receive a distinguished alumni award by the institution where he graduated from years back.
Chief host of the event is Dean of Arts,Prof.Gbenga Fasiku. In a letter of invitation, Omatseye was described as an internationally recognized journalist,an alumnus of the Faculty of Arts.
Juju Eyes, this rippling story told by Sam Omatseye, has continued to make waves. In the literary circle in Nigeria now, it is the rave of the moment. In continuation of its public reading by Omatseye in different locations, it was the turn of the University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos, last week. It was a storming session as stakeholders, academics, students and critics were in attendance to listen and interrogate the author. EDOZIE UDEZE was there.
Sam Omatseye’s Juju Eyes has continued to travel from place to place. It was the turn of the University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos, last week. The fame, the flow, the glow of the story has also continued to be euphoric, registering in the minds of all. The aura of this well-crafted, properly thought out and well told tale has generated so much heat within the short period of its release. Its fame continue to travel like the wild harmattan fire, confounding literary critics, lovers of literature, scholars and close watchers of events in the culture sector. It is a story that touches people who cherish storytellers and their works.
When the public reading of the novel opened at UNILAG, the momentum reached a crescendo immediately. Omatseye, chairman of the editorial board of the Nation Newspapers Lagos, a former human rights activist and the author of the book had just read the prologue. It only took the hypersensitivity of the prologue and the strangeness of the characters to cause heated arguments, comments, and reactions from the audience. This time, Omatseye carefully read the rather elongated but effusive prologue, spelling out what is obviously the summary of the powers of the main character, Shay, goddess of all goddesses, a baby of four who could wrestle and puncture the powers of her native shrine. A baby who could overwhelm all the unseen witches and wizards and render their potency impotent.
For people who have been following the novel and its engrossing contents, Shay is made to be queen of all queens in a very strange way that is meant to confound and shock the powers of all goddesses. Omatseye expertly and wisely created a character that is larger than the ordinary. A character that cannot be dethroned by seen and unseen powers and forces. And this is why the forces which Shay (Oluseyi Ekanem) controls cannot be suppressed by any other. That alone, that strange opening in the prologue quickly sends someone’s mind on edge as soon as one begins to read it.
Authors, often knowingly or unknowingly build characters who are often bigger than they really are. This is often deliberate, albeit, to give the story a bent that is never seen or encountered in th realm of literary rendition. It is this approach that set Juju Eyes apart from the rest. Nowhere has it ever been seen or contemplated that the(un)holy ghost fire in a little girl of four overwhelmed those of seasoned and iconoclastic goddess and goddesses. Not even in a fantasy tale. Witches are not meant to be outwitted by ordinary mortals but Shay did. She slowly graduated from being a kid witchcraft into a mega one. A mega one that does not only torment elders, rich men, but also brings her fellow powerful and society women under her compelling Juju Eyes.
Now, even if Shay assumes Juju Eyes as her name, the rest of her life it will still stick. She has continued to use those eyes to capture, ensnare, enslave and control even the most powerful of all men. She does this effortlessly and at her own whim.
Omatseye said thus: “Maami has to present her daughter before the village shrine because it was her turn. Maami (Shay’s mother) hoped the day would never come when she would have to confess. She bore the guilt in silence on her daughter’s behalf. She never wanted her daughter Oluseyi, later to be called Shay- to know or be haunted by what happened to her when she was barely four years old. Maami was summoned one night by her mother, Eriade, a dying, wizened creature, who was otherwise charming, because of her busload of affection.
Omatseye was not done yet. “My turn for what. Not you, but my dear Oluseyi”, her mother announced with cheerful irritability. The deity needs a companion and the family whose turn it was lost their daughter. So, it is our turn now. The first time since my great, great, grandaunt”.
And so, with this kind of build up, meticulously done, the author infused lots of elements of witchcraft characteristic into Shay. Thus she becomes a goddess other goddesses must submit to. Now the goddess Okumo needs a powerful female protegee in her coven. Thus, apart from assuming all the powers, Shay also becomes a priestess duly equipped and created by the novelist to bring down men and women from their utopian heights.
That is one of the whole essences of this novel. This is so because Omatseye says “my granddaughter is already a goddess. She survived the battle. She will be a priestess or something (higher). Watch out. The remains of the forest after the flames had expired.
Someone during this session nicknamed it the fire of the spirits or (un)holy ghost fire. Yes, it has already burnt away all the obstacles on Shay’s way. Henceforth she is fully in charge, emitting danger, fomenting trouble and destroying lesser forces on her way.
However, the reactions and comments and interrogations from the audience were deeper in every sense of the word. Peopled by eggheads, critics, teachers of literature and their students, the hall came alive quickly. Someone wanted to know how writers create characters and those characters seem to resonate and exist somewhere outside the reach of the author. Are authors mystic in anyway? Why would Omatseye keep eulogizing and arrogating such incredible powers to his women characters? How does he imagine, discover and create them? Nevertheless, Omatseye’s opening remarks set the hall rolling with deep sense of imagination when he asked if Shay is really a bad girl. Is she a goddess or goddesses? Can she be killed by other goddesses?” But the prologue situates all these in the best way possible. This is part of the story of Nigeria. Everything contained in the novel rears their heads in Nigeria.
The story situates African societies in the realm and concept of spirituality. Shay began with some measure of simplicity and then graduates into a bigger and complicated personality, driven by her witchcraft potency. At this juncture Omatseye repeated that he loves using women to elaborate and embellish his ideas of the society. “I use women and their foibles to reach out through my stories”.
He did same in his previous works The Crocodile Girl, My Name is Okoro and now Juju Eyes. “When I encountered a Nigerian lady in the U.S who succeeded in altering her local name so as to divert attention from where she comes from, the name Shay stuck. This was during the COVID-19 era. The sequences of the story thus fell in place”. An author therefore can use any little spark in his head or around him to start off a story idea. While the story progresses, some other powerful forces known and unknown can come in to hijack the flow from left to right. When that happens, the writer only needs to flow along. There are mystic forces controlling the pen of a writer once he is set to go. This is what Omatseye explained that happens often. All you need to do is to follow the dictates and what your brain orders you to do. In the end a story is born and the rest are left for the reader to discern, stomach, discard or absorb. The judgment, invariably, is in the hands of the reader or critic who can give different interpretations to the book. In this case, Shay is part of the unholy ghost fire that made Omatseye to even abandon an original story idea he set out to write. Now he has ended up under her spell discarding that original idea that has a leading male character.
It is still part of the mysticisms of an author who recreates the world through his many crazy and not too crazy thoughts and ideas. If not, why would Shay arrest, harvest and discard the heart of a goddess and no one has questioned her up till today. The goddesses are mystic. And the author is more mystical, indeed a bigger god. He has been able to demystify their powers with the emergence of a bigger Wizkid who is a priestess. The idea of the public reading therefore is to bring out these other sides of the book.
The hidden concepts behind it, if you like. The novel is deeper than mere reading it. “Every time I read this book or encounter people who have read it, I get new ideas that crept in while I wrote it. Today the idea of holy ghost is heard. Yes, Nollywood people can create a film out of it. But my fear is that they may not represent the real soul of the novel which you get when you read it. There is this unimaginable feel you get when you read a book than when you watch it as a film. The film aspect may not get into the interiors of the character”, the author said.
This aspect of a character has been described by some critics as the contours of a book. It is only an expert eyes that can see and decode those contours. For instance, how do you exonerate, or denigrate or even praise the demons that propel Shay? The author revealed that he grew up in the village back in Delta where gods and goddesses held sway. That was in the years of yore. Today the people are complaining that the forest of the gods and goddesses are continually being decimated. Now why wouldn’t the gods and goddesses defend themselves?
So, the responsibility of the author is to visit such scenarios. It is here that the issue of mystical or mystic writing comes to play. Often people complain that writers dwell on such perspectives. Why would an author bother? Your work is to write according to how you are led. The rest goes into the subconscious of the reader who decides how to sum up the contents. Omatseye said, ‘oh, I just tell my stories’
The session was handled by Dr. Awelewa Abayomi who was thrilled more or less by the scene in chapter sixteen of the book. The title is bonfire. Actually, Omatseye used the opportunity of this section of the book to review lots about the state of politics in Nigeria. For him beyond the burning of the naira by a political godfather in order to control the soul of his political godson, politicians can do anything, just anything to win and be in politics. This is a warning and indeed one of the most mystic portions of this lovely tale. A tale full of lots and lots of revelations. After the author read from it the hall became more agitated with reactions that made references to many situations where godfatherism in Nigeria are obviously in action. That is politics for you, a game of intrigues and dirtiness.
Present at the occasion, were some topnotch academics from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lagos. In the hall were Professors Hope Eghagha, Chris Anyaoku, Biodun Adeniji. Others were Ademola Adesola, Lola Akande, and many English students who made it clear that the subject matter interested them profoundly. The head of department of English, Adeniji, saluted Omatseye whom he said was his senior colleague in the days of Concord. He apologized for the lack of electricity in the whole school, attributing it to the collapse of their transformer.
Eghagha praised Omatseye for his ability in serenading the public with books year in year out. Professor Patrick Olokor said it is good to write to help develop scholarship. And that as an author, Omatseye has successfully combined journalism with authorship to remain ever relevant”. And because of the reduction of the price of the book some were purchased for the libraries. Students and other guests brought theirs to Omatseye for autograph. Meanwhile some members of staff of the Nation Newspapers and some close allies and friends of the author were in attendance. On the whole the infectious effects of Juju Eyes continues to transcend the mundane, penetrating and piercing the eyes of the larger society
Not only demonstrating his versatility and depth as a trained historian, Sam Omatseye’s recent lecture at the Trinity University, Yaba’ Lagos, titled ‘Information in an Age of Flux’, also vividly illustrated the writer’s rich immersion in the literatures of the world, his philosophical cast of mind, his virtuosity as a technocrat of words and his vast media experience over the last three and a half decades as reporter, editor, columnist, university lecturer in Canada and the US and currently Editorial Board Chairman of this newspaper.
Deploying humour, wit and dialectical reasoning to maximum effect, the Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Arts exhaustively examines the evolution and transformation of information across time and space within historical, sociological, philosophical and scientific contexts. His lecture is thus essentially cross-disciplinary in range and thrust.
It is understandable and inevitable that Omatseye situates his discourse on the unfolding saga of information in the human experience within the framework of time. It is within the context of time that man lives, works, worships, thinks, invents, entertains, engages in politics, fight wars and dies. Information has become one of the most critical factors in the evolution of man with its influence and impact, both for good and evil, acquiring ever greater significance with the unceasing flow of time.
As the writer evocatively expounds in his opening sentences, “Time and information intersect like twins. We even need information to know time and time to secure information. Hence, the historian is the most important tool to the social scientist. The historian is the custodian of time. If the social scientist needs the historian, memory is the armour of all humans. History is official memory. But our other memory is in our minds and hearts. And time is the only commodity you cannot get back”.
Omatseye waxes poetic as he continues: “Time creates the age. Time changes language, changes leaders, recalibrates culture, overthrows regimes, refines the barbaric into a debonair, makes a monster of a prince or transforms an angel into a Mephistopheles. Time passes like stealth, and it is like death. You cannot resurrect time. You can only imitate or mimic it”. He brings a historian’s microscope to dissect the evolution of societies and cultures from prehistoric times to the present. In his encyclopedic treatise, we are given glimpses into the civilization of the Greeks, the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the dark ages in Europe, the invention of printing, the acceleration of scientific progress and phenomenal leaps in technological growth particularly information and communication technology and the attendant ever increasing cultural complexity of society.
The lecturer utilizes the analytic lenses of the sociologist, Alvin Toffler, to dilate on tidal waves of revolutionary change in our contemporary world. In his words, “All of this fall into what Alvin Toffler in his famous book, The Third Wave, called the Second Wave of history. For him the first wave began with the neolithic age, the hunter-gatherer or what some may call the stone age. His categorization may be arbitrary and the content of each category peremptory, but it shows how the mercurial spirit of humanity has spun many a narrative so much so that it takes a lot of work to simplify”.
The lecturer’s thoughts in this regard remind us of the path breaking work of Karl Marx who had earlier delineated progressive stages in the evolution of human society spanning the communal mode of production, slavery, feudalism and the emergence of industrial capitalism in the 18th century. Karl Marx sought to demonstrate that capitalism was not an eternally primordial and preexisting form of the organization of society which was in the natural order of things and thus unchanging. Each stage of societal development, Marx averred, depended on a given level of development of productive forces (technology) and further progress in the advancement of the latter would compel changes in the superstructure leading to higher levels in the mode of organization of society. He thus predicted the ultimate transcendence of capitalism when its extant form of social organization became an impediment to the further development of productive forces at the substructural level, and the inevitable emergence of the communist mode of production.
Ironically, while communism arguably facilitated the rapid scientific and technological progress of previously backward, feudal societies such as the defunct Soviet Union, China and Cuba, within relatively short spans of time, after a point they could not cope with the rate of capitalism’s unceasing transformation of the productive forces of science and technology. China and Russia have thus reverted to market forms of capitalist organization of their economies while retaining essentially authoritarian political systems.
However, the essential import of Marx’s evolutionary analysis of society was succinctly captured by the political scientist, Ellen Meiskins Wood, in her book, ‘The Origin of Capitalism’, when she argues that “The naturalization of capitalism, which denies its specificity and the long and painful historical processes that brought it into being, limits our understanding of the past. At the same time, it restricts our hopes and expectations for the future, for if capitalism is the natural culmination of history, then surmounting it is unimaginable…Thinking about future alternatives to capitalism requires us to think about alternative conceptions to its past”.
Alvin Toffler, however, in his work graphically captures relentless changes in technology that drive unceasing, revolutionary socio-cultural transformation even within the capitalist mode of production. Omatseye paints vivid portraits of these changes in his inimitable style. According to him, “Each age claims that prophecy as referring to their own. When the Wright Brothers gave us the aircraft, they said that was the age of prophecy. And that was before the age of the supersonic jets, the email, the WhatsApp, the Instagram, TikTok, Youtube, the drone, et al. People are going to and fro, not through bouffant clouds in an aircraft. Humans these days are spirits. They can be in a village near Ogbomosho and be in Frankfurt in one minute and Oslo the next and Sydney, Australia and Denver, Colorado simultaneously. You can do a job interview via zoom with a CEO in America, looking at each other while wearing a tie and jacket whereas you are naked from the waist down. Both of you, in American and Nigeria. Yet, you were properly dressed for the interview”.
The lecturer surgically dissects the implications for contemporary society of the revolutionary developments in information technology particularly the emergence of social media and the seeming anarchy of citizen journalism with scant respect for professional rules and regulations. Thus, we see the traditional media having to ceaselessly innovate and reinvent itself to compete effectively and remain afloat. Omatseye also adverts his mind to the immoral and cynical manipulation of information resulting in the prevalence of fake news which is widely perceived as constituting an existential threat to human existence.
The advances in human knowledge as well as scientific and technological growth captured so magisterially by Omatseye has also, in my view, been accompanied by a growing humanistic disposition to life. According to the theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer, “Humanism is the placing of Man at the center of all things and making him the measure of all things”. Thus, he deplores the shift “away from a world view that was at least vaguely Christian in people’s memory (even if they were not individually Christian) toward something completely different – toward a world view based upon the idea that the final reality is impersonal matter or energy shaped into its present form by impersonal chance”.
Implicit in the widespread disbelief in the existence of a transcendental being who created reality and dictated moral laws to guide and restrain human behavior has resulted in what Schaeffer describes as “The abolition of truth and morality”. Situational ethics prevail. There are no absolute standards of right and wrong. Everything has become relative. Politicians are free to lie barefacedly destroying the fabric of trust that is critical to democracy if the end justifies the means. Man’s scientific and technological feats are no longer seen as functions of his being made in the image of his creator who gave him a mandate to conquer and exercise dominion over the earth and equipped him with the innate capacity to achieve this. Within this essentially amoral context, ongoing scientific and technological attainments become dangerous weapons in the hands of a largely flawed humanity.
Thus, Omatseye’s tentativeness is understandable when he submits that “It is probably going to get worse with the new technology known as artificial intelligence, or AI. It is the ultimate mimic technology, as explained in Henry Kissinger’s book, The Age of AI. Anything or anyone can become dispensable. Someone else can present this lecture, if it were done remotely, and pretend to be me, the same face, the same voice. And receive the same applause, the same disapproval. How false that kind of world promises to be? The future is cheery and dreadful. The media is a reflection of the new reality. New reality will be virtual reality. As newspapers are threatened, so is a new world, brave and fragile”.
The Chairman of the Editorial Board of The Nation, Mr. Sam Omatseye, has said the Itsekiri need a renaissance and leaders who must understand the dynamics of a new world of global competitions, competitiveness, international trade and international ideas.
The multiple award-winning columnist urged the ethnic group to unite and put such leaders in vantage positions.
Omatseye, who was the keynote speaker at the 40th anniversary of Alpha May Club (AMC), delivered a lecture titled: The Way Forward and the Itsekiri Mystique.
He said the Itsekiri have distinguished themselves in various fields of endeavour and produced outstanding accountants, economists, technocrats, politicians, clerics, writers, singers, entrepreneurs, diplomats, media mavens, playwrights, intellectuals, innovators, more saints than sinners, medals and mentors, laurels and laureates, lores and lords.
The essayist said the time has come for the ethnic group to protect its soul against the enemies within and eschew war.
He said: “No kingdom, no people can face the world when it has a crippled toe because while others leap, it must limp.”
Emphasising the need for unity among his people, Omatseye said: “We must see our Itsekiri race as a certain West African kingdom mythicised its own people as a spirit in a pot full of holes. Every hole belongs to each person in the kingdom. It is the duty of everyone to cover their hole diligently and jealously.
“One person’s lapse in attention could open the hole to let the spirit of the commonwealth out and, therefore, lose our collective soul, our Iwere soul. God forbid.”
In the Itsekiri pot, the writer said, “there might be weak and leprous hands who are unwilling to guard their holes. It is the task of us all to ensure that one man’s folly or a few wayward men are not allowed to wreck the pot of our commonwealth”.
Omatseye said there was much work to do for the ethnic group, stressing that the time has come for the Itsekiri to collaborate with others to reawaken their potential from the slumber of neglect.
The eminent columnist said the future of Itsekiri is bright, despite some distractions.
He cited the example of Chief Patricia Otuedon-Arawore, who showed interest in the development of Itsekiri language by organising competitions among schools, such that those who won got infrastructure upgrade.
“We have neighbours. Let us work together and see how we can leverage this closeness to uplift Iwere. We have the Edo people, our kin, to tap for the region. We have the Yoruba, also our kin, to work with for our greater glory. We cannot, for instance, forget what the Yoruba did for us during a recent crisis,” he added.
A remarkable book grabbed the headlines as Sam Omatseye unveiled Beating All Odds: Diaries and Essays on How Bola Tinubu Became President in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, on March 12. Predictably, the event created a buzz.
The book shows the journalist as a historian, and the historian as a journalist. Omatseye, an effervescent columnist and Chairman of the Editorial Board of The Nation, studied History at the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Osun State.
As the title of the book indicates, it has a diary section possibly inspired by a historian’s instinct. From August 19, 2022 to February 17, 2023, he wrote private diary entries documenting the various political dramas that preceded Nigeria’s presidential and National Assembly elections held on February 25, 2023. He kept the diary for seven months, ending his record-keeping a week to the elections. “There was so much to document,” he noted in an interview, adding that he limited his diary entries to “500 to 600 words.”
In the build-up to the event, a TV interviewer asked him why he kept a diary in the period. His answer: “I thought this election was going to be really turbulent, and I told myself I really need to be taking these things down week after week… I didn’t know I was going to make it into a book. I didn’t know what I was planning to do with it, but I knew it was an interesting thing to do. I don’t think anybody had done it, a diary of Nigerian election campaigns. I thought that was an innovative way of looking at the events. I tracked them up to the very day of the election. After the election I stopped keeping a diary.”
He was particularly interested in the presidential election, and his favoured candidate was Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who won the election and became president. The Special Guest of Honour at the event, Vice President Kashim Shettima, noted that the election “certainly was the most divisive in the history of this country.”
In the book’s second section, the diarist becomes a columnist. His weekly column in The Nation, ‘In Touch,’ is known for its colour and assertiveness. This part is a collection of some of his columns written before the elections and after. In an important sense, the selected columns are records of sorts.
Omatseye’s column on the eve of the event was an excerpt from the book, in which the author describes Tinubu as “a man of politics,” and ascribes his triumph in the presidential election to “the ineluctable force of destiny.”
His words: “I knew the president – Muhammadu Buhari – did not want him. The peacocks and vampires around him did not want him. Some stakeholders in the country did not only resent him, they were afraid of him. The plot thickened quickly. Conspiracies festered in sewers and in the open. And it began with the party’s top brass.”
On the role of inscrutable destiny in Tinubu’s electoral victory, he makes observations that are food for thought. His words: “He did not have a hand in all his victory… For instance, he was not the one who coerced the northern governors of his party, some of them with ambition to be president, to coalesce to endorse a southern candidate.
“Tinubu was not there when the party chairman was throwing tantrums over the choice at a party stakeholders’ meeting with President Buhari. Not a shadow of Tinubu was there when the northern governors were summoned to defend the idea of a southern candidacy to President Buhari. It was not he who was on Lalong’s lips when he defended the justice of having a southerner.
“It was not Tinubu who set Peter Obi on a collision course with his PDP. He did not set the party on fire with five governors led by then Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike. Or Kwankwaso who turned the Kano tide against PDP.”
The book would have been incomplete without his August 2022 article titled ‘Obi-tuary,’ which provoked a menacing response from the camp of one of the presidential candidates, Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), whose supporters believed he had gone too far.
“It was a pun but they did not see the fun,” he says in a June 2023 essay titled ‘I Pardon All,’ which captures his endangerment following the publication of ‘Obi-tuary.’ “When I wrote the piece, ‘Obi-tuary, ’ there was a tempest in the land,” he recounts. “It was a hectic time for me and my loved ones. I did not go to the office for four months. I was a hermit, except for my trips for the TVC Breakfast show, and I had got here in disguise. I attended no parties, no public events, and restaurants. I was as Americans say a home buddy. But I forgive all. I forgive those who did not understand English enough to know that I was using a figure of speech.”
Indeed, this combo of diary entries and essays on Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election and Tinubu’s rise to power has special dimensions. This is the first time that the election journey of the country’s president has been tracked, documented and published in such a book form. It redefines record-keeping.
Interestingly, the concept of the book meant that it was being written as relevant events developed. It can be described as a ready-made book. According to the author, “Immediately the election was over, it was then I knew I was going to publish this book. It was already written. The only thing I had to do was the author’s note.” He told an interviewer that he did not know Tinubu would win the presidential election. He could not have known. Understandably, he admitted that the book would not have been published if Tinubu had not become president.
So, Tinubu’s electoral victory indirectly produced the book. The author must be commended for presenting a record of his path to victory. Omatseye says he expects the book to create “an atmosphere to look back at the election, to put everything in perspective, for all of us to know how we got here.” That is the significance of his book.
The Chairman, Editorial Board of The Nation Newspaper, Sam Omatseye is in tears. He is in deep pain and regret. The pain in Omatseye’s heart began the day Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State was declared winner of the 2019 election.
Omatseye knew that his emotion-laden commentaries enmeshed in acrimony as published on the back page of The Nation had failed to elicit the rejection of Governor Ortom among Benue people – a target he set for himself long before the polls. Omatseye’s diatribe on Governor Ortom sounds much like the frustration which reality thrusts upon a drunken debtor who must face his creditor the next morning. His pain is nonetheless understandable.
I keep wondering what interest the Chairman of a newspaper’s editorial board has in the politics of a state as we have seen in Sam’s frequent outings on Benue State in the last one year. Wither goes Omatseye’s toga of neutrality? Why so much venom upon one governor?
Sam’s latest column as published on the back page of April 1, 2019 edition of The Nation sought to paint Governor Ortom as a tribal warlord who preaches hate, division and fear using the herdsmen attacks on Benue communities. He in the same column portrayed Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong as a peace-loving man and one who cherishes the unity of all Nigerians living in his state.
Omatseye has apparently lost the meaning of democracy which confers on the people the right to choose their leaders.
The curious question is; who paid Sam Omatseye to denigrate Benue people calling them lovers of food and sex? His words, “I hear they make pounded yam by the day and make love at night.”
Omatseye is clearly on a mission to trigger national hatred towards Benue people and leaders of the State. Quite unfortunate! It is sad because Sam is not known to own cattle. Even if he owns cows, his animals graze far away from the Benue Valley. So why so much anger that Governor Ortom signed a law and insisted that the legislation be implemented? Was Sam aware of the public hearings that took place in the three senatorial districts of Benue before the State House of Assembly passed the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Bill?
Ironically, in the entirety of the 173-line column in The Nation, Omatseye has failed to fault the 2019 Benue election which gave Governor Ortom his 2nd term. There is nowhere in the piece that he said Governor Ortom was not genuinely voted by the people. This implies that he has also admitted that truly, the Benue State Governor is loved by his people despite vicious daily ‘sermons’ by angry men like Sam Omatseye who try to shred his reputation and political credentials.
Perhaps Sam needs to be reminded that Governor Ortom scored one of the widest margins by any Governor seeking re-election. He polled 434,473 votes to beat his closest rival and candidate of the APC, Emmanuel Jime, who got 345,155 votes – a margin of 89, 318.
Omatseye’s latest bile against Governor Ortom is a veiled attack on Benue people majority of who renewed the Governor’s mandate last month. By repeatedly playing down the herdsmen invasion and killing of hundreds of innocent people, Omatseye has not only chosen the path of infamy but also played the card of a conspirator and that of an editor who uses his medium to insult an entire state. Sam implied in one of his paragraphs that the January 11, 2018 mass burial of 73 Benue victims of herdsmen attacks was a mere political event. We forgive Sam Omatseye. But it must be stated that no dance on the graves of the victims can be more painful and shameful!
Omatseye should have known that under Governor Samuel Ortom Benue has garduated 172 doctors between 2015 and 2018. He should also have known that regular payment of salaries resumed in the State since January 2018 while efforts are in top gear to clear the arrears.
The Nation’s Editorial Board Chairman ought to have told Nigerians in his column that he is now a card carrying member of All Progressives Congress, APC. He didn’t need to hide under the journalism cloak of impartiality to play the political talking drum.
Political analyst and Chairman, Editorial Board of The Nation Newspapers, Sam Omatseye, joined by Member, Online Editor, Sunday Oguntola to discuss the 2019 Presidential election and President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory at the poll.
Political analyst and Chairman, Editorial Board of The Nation Newspapers, Sam Omatseye, joined by Member, Editorial board Femi Macaulay to discuss the CCT trial of CJN Walter Onnoghen, President Muhammadu Buhari suspension of the CJN and Former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili withdrawing from the 2019 Presidential election.
Chairman of The Nation’s Editorial Board, Mr. Sam Omatseye, has cautioned Nigerians not to elect leaders that would return the country to the nanny state.
Omatseye noted that a nanny state birthed stomach infrastructure which he said does not lead to progress.
Speaking on Friday at the Igbinedion University, Okada where he delivered the 16th convocation lecture titled “Epistocracy: The Challenge of a Knowledge Democracy”, Omatseye said Nigeria need a republic of conscience.
Omatseye stated that a republic of conscience would made the epistocrat enrich the country’s democracy by emphasizing education with the right values.
He said Nigeria need to return to a republic of the enlightened that Chief Obafemi Awolowo started by making education compulsory up to the university level.
The Nation’s Editorial Board Chairman stated that the resources for the free university education would be available if there was a will.
Omatseye said an enlightened masses is the country’s way out of the quagmire of ignorance and out of the morass of poverty.
According to him, “In Nigeria, the problem of poverty is perceived to be at the bottom of the challenge of a Knowledge democracy.
“But how do we handle this without a good educational system? So ignorance and poverty have come together as the twins that haunt us.
“We still need a democracy not of dunces but of the discerning. We cannot have it for instance with a mass of talakawa who line up behind a man because he is perceived to be a specimen of high integrity and asceticism.
“We need imagination, courage and a spirit of accommodation. Awolowo understand this when he introduced free education and birthed a generation of enlightened men and women.”
Deputy Chancellor of the institution, Chief Lucky Igbinedion, urged government at all level to provide jobs for young graduates or create an environment for skilled graduates to excel.
Mrs. Salome Omotemevo Omatseye, the mother of The Nation Editorial Board ChairmanSam Omatseye, is dead. She died September 14 after a brief illness. She was 75.
She was born in Emevo, Delta State. She is survived by seven children: Sam, Jonathan, Choice, Grace, Elizabeth, Mercy and Gabriel.
She was a devout member of God’s Kingdom Society (GKS). She played various roles in the church. She had a lively spirit that laced her performance as a noted chorister, especially in major church events, including the Feast of Terbanacles, which takes place every December.
She was also a business woman and traded in textile and jewelry before she retired.
She was married to late Mr Moses Omatseye, who was a technocrat, a business man and a prominent member of GKS.
Omatsaye said: “My mother was not perfect, but she raised me. When I was In Government College, Ughelli she accompanied me every year from Ibadan to Orogun, her home village, and escaped death on her return in a fatal accident near Ore. At one time when I was ill, we arrived the old Bendel State at night in a squall of rain, and the roads were so bad, the transporter dropped us in the middle of nowhere. I can still hear the panic in her voice as we walk miles on marshy roads near midnight to find a village to pass the night. She feared I would expire that night. It was from her I learned the ABC and 123 when she was a seamstress during the civil war.”
