Pleading the age-long and well-respected Right of Reply journalism tenet; the Dr. Patrick Ifeany Ubah campaign organization would like to point out the glaring anomalies in your story of Tuesday November 5, 2013.
First, it is hardly surprising that the piece “Ubah Gets Knock for Conduct at Debate” was neither news nor opinion and was unsigned. That shows that the writer actually has a sense of shame; it should make anyone ashamed to have his name tagged to such hogwash. Yet, could it be that the story originated from a camp of one of Dr. Ubah’s opponents in the November 16 elections? That appears most likely.
Second, it is a surprise that the only story that a respected national newspaper such as THISADY could publish about that debate (of Friday October 31) was about Ubah’s exposure of grand cheating by one of the contestants. Pray, how did the debaters fare? What was the highlight of the debate? How did the audience react to the answers from the debaters? Who carried the day?
Unfortunately, none of such questions agitated the mind of that hack writer – and that made it plain that news about the debate was far from his goals. That made it likely too that the story was below the THISDAY level.
It is on record that the organizers of that debate warned all the debaters that none should come with prepared answers. It also on record that Willie Boy Obiano came with prepared answer scripts. Most important, Dr. Ubah should receive accolades for catching Obiano red-handed and showing that he would have zero tolerance for corruption (and any form of cheating is corruption) he had to expose that corruption most energetically. Actually Ubah received accolades that day – both for coming tops at the debate, and for exposing a cheat.
Remarkably, when Dr. Ubah recovered the scripts and waved them in the air, and accused Obiano for that corruption, all Obiano could do was to smile sheepishly and to bow his head shamefacedly. He never defended himself –not during that debate; not after it. So far, this remains a fact.
Rules are made to be obeyed. Obiano disobeyed the rules. If Obiano was ever seen jotting down points, he would not have been accused of cheating. And notes jotted down during a debate is quite different from fully developed paragraphs on various issues –some which were never raised up at the debate.Owing to this, Ubah has called Obiano to borrow some dignity from somewhere to cover his lack of integrity. The only option open to him to do the right thing is to opt out of the race for who will be the next governor of Anambra state. A man who would cheat on little matters would do so on great ones.
By the way, who told the member of the audience who was mentioned in your report, that Obiano used the papers discovered on him for jotting down questions? How did he reach that conclusion? What informed that belief? The story failed to dwell further on such grave but baseless claim. Or is the man an Obiano appendage? And did he even write and pass out the story as a genuine news item filed by a bonafide reporter? Well, stranger things have happened.
The truth is that on that day, Ubah out-performed the so-called well-educated debaters. Most interestingly, he exposed the problem Anambra voters should well avoid – voting in a man who has no respect for rules to be their governor, no matter his claims to be a “world-class Chartered Accountant that worked in a world-class bank” (as Obiano claimed during that debate) and was involved in a world-class cheating during that same debate and a world-class blood-letting at Uke night vigil.
Signed
Afam Ilounoh Esq
Director Media & Publicity,
Ifeanyi Ubah Campaign Organization
