Barely a week after Abia State governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, attacked one of his predecessors, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, over travel allowances, his Chief Press Secretary; Mr.Godwin Adindu may have saved his principal from fierce attacks from some editors of Sun newspaper and Kalu’s media handlers.
Kalu had alleged that governors collect as much as N35 million on every trip to Abuja, and linked the governor’s inability to pay salaries to their financial recklessness.
Though the former governor didn’t mention the name of any particular state chief executive, but Personal Assistant to Ikpeazu, Enyinnaya Appolos, in an interview he granted in Authority newspaper, lambasted Kalu calling him names, claiming that his boss,Ikpeazu does not travel with more than N5 million while he charters flights on emergency occasions between N3.5m and N4m.
247ureports.com gathered that as soon as the attack on the former governor was published, Adindu started reaching out to Kalu’s media handlers and some editors of Kalu’s Sun newspaper, pleading for mercy that the attack does not have the support of the governor.
A source at the Abia Government House hinted that Adindu further informed Kalu’s media handlers that the attack was the personal opinion of the governor’s PA whom he described as arrogant and one who has been usurping his duties as Ikpeazu’s spokesman by unilaterally issuing statements on behalf of the governor.
Adindu first contacted some unnamed editors of the Sun newspaper and later pleaded with Ebere Wabara to forgive and let go of the incident. The source quoted Adindu to have said that the attack if allowed to fester from Kalu’s media warriors could trigger off series of ‘grave expositions’ and media attacks which may cause more image problems for the Abia governor.
He noted that it would be against Ikpeazu’s interest to ‘wake up ’the Sun newspaper who had so far, maintained a ‘wait and see attitud’e on the new administration in Abia.
247ureports.com investigations revealed that in the meantime, Ikpeazu’s administration appears set to take over the fierce exchange with the former governor and his Sun newspaper which was the hallmark of his predecessor, Senator Theodore Orji’s second tenure that led to the abduction of Wabara from Lagos to Umuahia. But editors of the newspaper are said to be watching events unfold, projecting Ikpeazu in their reportage while the governor keeps the newspaper and its correspondents in the state at arm’s length.
Said one of the numerous Media Assistants to Ikpeazu who pleaded anonymity, “This is what you get when the governor’s media unit is not organized or coordinated. The CPS, Godwin Adindu’s ‘I know it all attitude’ has caused great divisions in the media team. The governor’s PA, Enyinnaya Appolos and other aides of the governor issue statements and public announcements as if they are the governor’s spokesman. No good aide of any governor would try to cause media problems for his boss. You make friends in the media for the governor, not enemies as they are doing for Ikpeazu. Since Ikpeazu came in, it has been a hell of confusion. Adindu has been quarreling with everybody including the governor’s media aides and journalists practicing in the state.
“So, if the place is organized, how will a PA to the governor dabble into a duty outside his job by issuing a statement that is not in the interest of his boss? How many PAs to the governors in the 36 states have you see granting interviews? And when you realize that Orji Uzor Kalu did not even mention any governor’s name in that allegation, then you will begin to wonder the type of aides Ikpeazu surrounded himself with.”
