After reading the article “Stella Oduah: Woman Down” by Ross Alabo-George published yesterday, October 29, 2013, by Elombah.com, I immediately felt the need to intervene in the hope of helping to prevent the lynching of an innocent woman by a hate mob incited by people with ulterior motives.

This is a third stage in the clumsy plot to achieve the ouster of the Minister of Aviation through rumours and smear. Look at how it plays out: Some enemies of the Minister pieced together some embellished stories that could not add up on any basis and peddled it through Sahara Reporters. The goal was to force the Minister out. The reward for Sahara Reporters was the payment of some money, as usual.

Sahara Reporters published the lies and expected them to generate sufficient hysteria and sense of outrage to arouse discomfort within the Presidency, intensifying the pressure for the Minister to resign or be removed. The first stage of the plot was the Sahara Reporters’ main story.

The well-orchestrated second stage was the follow-up story by Premium Times, all in the conspiracy. The story of PT was so sensational it actually unintentionally contradicted the story by SR. The second stage was to force the Minister to cave in and for her supporters to withdraw. But that did not happen.

Then the third stage: SR deploys Ross Alabo-George, one of its writers, to step in with an opinion piece that looked on the surface as if well reasoned out and merely coincidental in timing. The trick is for Ross to publish his piece on Elombah.com to disguise the original impulse from SR, and at the same time, give the pretense that the quest to lynch the Minister was coming from diverse sources. (This is probably, no surprise, the first time that Ross would be posting in Elomah.com. Otherwise, he is SR writer). But in reality, that is the third stage. SR chose Ross for this mission because it could not use Okey Ndibe, for obvious reasons.

Ross’ piece is so biased in the facts and lopsided in logic that it ought not have merited any serious consideration. His comparison of the case of Ambassador Susan Rice with that of Ms. Oduah, for instance, is off every scale of logic. Rice was merely nominated as Secretary of State. She was not accused of committing fraud. She could withdraw her nomination without any consequence to her reputation.

Oduah does not have that luxury. She could not resign without, by implication at least, admitting to some wrongdoing. To suggest that Ms. Oduah should resign betrays Ross’ presumptions along with Omoyele Sowore and the publishers of Premium Times that she is guilty as yet-to-be-charged. It is important to observe that no one has articulated yet the offence of Ms. Oduah. No one has stated what offence she committed or what law she violated.

The notion that once SR smears a person, such person is doomed is the fantasy mentality of those who have constituted themselves into demigods through banditry journalism. That is why it is important in this case and any other to resist that cabal. The Minister should not resign because there is no basis for that. And hopefully, Ross would stop pretending to be expressing an independent opinion and admit that he is the third stage in a plot that is already doomed to fail.

•Emeka Ugwuonye, Esquire, lawyer and activist, writes from Maryland, USA. Photo shows Aviation Minister Stella Oduah.

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