President Goodluck Jonathan’s Presidency is probably the most bizarre in the history of the Nigerian presidency. Despite monumental heaps of corruption, allegations and repeated cycles of scams, none of his top cabinet members has been arraigned for corruption. While Nigerians have always been used to the word “corruption” because of its pervasiveness, the word “impunity” is a relative new entry to the Nigerian political lexicon. There is a reason that is; everything we see under this administration points out to one thing, those who are loyal to the government can do no wrong no matter how despicable their wrong ways. A presidential aide, Reno Omokri, who works under Mr. Oronto Douglas as Special Assistant to the President on New Media, last week raised the ante on propaganda in the Nigerian political space. If the name Wendell Simlin does not ring a bell, this would be a good place to recount the story.
Simlin used this email, wendellsimlin@yahoo.com, to send an email across on Wednesday, February 26, 2014. The email sought to link the suspension of the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Lamido Sanusi, with the terror attacks that happened after the day. The email also portrayed Alhaji Abdul Mutallab as some sort of a terrorist. The idea was to link Sanusi’s friendship with Mutallab and other named persons and to present them as financiers of Boko Haram. The accusations were written as part of the body of the email and as an attached Microsoft Word document. It took the curiousity of some tech savvy Nigerians to check the properties of the document sent by the so-called Wendell Simlin. On checking the properties of the document attached by Simlin, the name, “Reno Omokri”, showed in the place of “Author,” while “Hewlett Packard” showed up as the computer used to prepare the document. This was not the only part of Simlin story that had “Reno Omokri” written all over it.
A search for “Wendell Simlin” on Google showed an image of about seven people, with Reno Omokri one of them. The image has since been deleted from the photos of the obviously fictitious Wendell Simlin on Facebook. Feyi Fawehinmi, one of the Nigerians who unravelled the mystery surrounding Simlin, stated that a search through Facebook showed that Wendell Simlin and Reno Omokri have a Facebook history that dates as far back as 2010. They have both liked each other’s posts and commented on threads posted by each other. Citizen investigators have also since found out through the header of the email sent by Wendell Simlin that the email was likely to have been sent from the Kubwa area of Abuja. The Internet Service Provider for the email was Galaxy Backbone, the same company that caters for the Internet hosting services of the Federal Government of Nigeria. Several people who received Wendell Simlin’s email have all since carried out these checks and have found them to be true. “The document’s digital signature shared a 100 per cent resemblance with that of others PREMIUM TIMES had received from Mr. Omokri in the past,” stated Premium Times in one of its publications on the scandal.
Despite the above overwhelming proofs, one is expected to give Omokri the benefit of the doubt. That benefit is not the same as the government Omokri serves keeping quiet a week after the incident. There are arguments about the fact that Omokri’s office is inconsequential in the general scheme of things but had the allegations in Simlin’s email not been shot down by the discoveries stated above, Sanusi would have been effectively roped into the many deaths and terrorist attacks unleashed on Nigerians in the North-East zone. If Omokri acted alone, he must be made to face the music of his indiscretion. The idea behind the email shared in the name of Wendell Simlin clearly shows the mind of a man whose capacity for evil is unlimited. If the act had the backing of superior officers, it would be understandable for them to look to protect one of their own. Wendell Simlin certainly has one on his colleagues and may likely sing if he is made to fall alone.
As a people, we should be very afraid of those who run our country. Wendell Simlin – you know who – sent his email from Kubwa Abuja, from a Galaxy Backbone ISP just a day after 59 schoolchildren had been killed at a secondary school in Yobe State. The incandescent email was written on the canvas of the deaths and killings in the North-East. The author was essentially playing political games with the terrorist attacks. The death of scores of people in the North-East was in this Wendell Simlin’s email being used as a political bullet to shoot at an already suspended central bank Governor. This is just one unravelled email. What about the other covert efforts to use the terrorism in the North-East to achieve certain political ends? At what point will this ever be about the souls of the departed, the left families and indeed the general population in the zone.
As a people, we can continue to sit in the comfort of indifference while fellow citizens continue to get killed under the guise of terrorism. There is certainly more to this than meets the eye.
You’d have to read the email sent by Simlin to know the intention of those behind it. More than enough facts have been stated above about the link between Omokri and Slimlin. Nothing has been proved to say without a doubt that Omokri is Wendell Simlin but enough has been proved to show that. Omokri certainly has questions to answer about Wendell Simlin. Today’s government, with itself soiled by scams and corruption all over the place, cannot challenge the moral uprightness of one of its own. A dog will not challenge its puppies for trying to bark. A pig will never dare to prevent its offspring from getting dirty. It is the very essence of their existence.
We asked the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation for our $20bn but we now have to deal with fuel scarcity for daring to even ask. Kidnappers, terrorists, armed robbers, rapists among others continue to be on the prowl, yet government continues to run away from accepting these challenges. As a people, we have come to accept inefficiency and incompetence as the norm. We of course want a better country but we want to only pray and fast our way into it. As long as effort is zero, result will always be zero. If we dare allow propaganda and sheer evil acts such as those orchestrated by “Wendell Simlin” to become the norm, we’d be gone as a society. Whatever the government does on the Wendell Simlin scandal, there’d never be a need to set up a committee on the matter. We know no committee was set up when the issue involved Sanusi. When a government wants to get something done, it does it without setting up committees. In the end, one can only wonder what the government wants from a man it has since suspended. It would be great to see the government show Nigerians how all of these are in the interest of Nigerians and not that of a select cabal. Wendell Simlin is just another badge of shame on an already dirty presidential escutcheon. Who exactly is Wendell Simlin?
- Omojuwa, Editor, AfricanLiberty.org, wrote in via mr.omojuwa@gmail.com t: @omojuwa
No comments:
Post a Comment