ORTOM'S RADIO CHAT; THE GAFFES, THE OPPOSITION AND THE DIGNITY OF BENUE WORKERS. by Chris Tion

After listening to Benue State Governor Chief Samuel Ortom's interview on Harvest FM on 2nd August 2017 ,media mogul Chris Tion takes a look at some of the high points in his interview, Please read.

I was privileged by a quirk of fate to listen live to H.E. Samuel Ortom’s radio chat on Harvest FM, Makurdi, on the morning of 2nd August, 2017. This article is my personal take on it from the prism of a brand communicator. It is lengthy, so if you don’t like long write ups you may stop here. If you might be irked by a frank and objective analysis of the radio chat you may also stop reading now.

THE ACCESSIBLE GOVERNOR
Since the creation of Benue State on 3rd February 1976, no governor or sole administrator has consciously tried to connect with the people as much as H. E. Ortom. This is evidenced by his live radio sessions, like the one in view, various stakeholders’ forums, and the relative accessibility of the “Benue People’s House” (his moniker for the Benue State Government House) to ordinary folks. It says something deep about his person. He wants to communicate with his people. It also means he gives an account of his stewardship to the populace directly and therefore is more susceptible to scrutiny than previous governors who lorded it over the populace and shrouded government activities in mystery. At lease based on his own pronouncements he can be held to account.
This is a commendable trait and he must be encouraged to keep at it. For instance, H.E. Ortom said the current wage bill of Benue State is N7.8billion. Whenever he learn of something to the contrary we would be justified to call him out.
There are a few better ways to be truly transparent!

RADIO CHATS, A SLIPPERY SLOPE
The 32nd President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt (president from 1933-1945) is reputed to have first delivered the weekly radio address to his citizens, then called “fireside chats.”  President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) later revived the practice and his successors, save for George H. W. Bush, have all continued the practice.
While the earlier version of the weekly radio chat was a one way interaction, the later versions with the advent of new media have become more “interactive”, given that they are shared on platforms like YouTube and people make comments which the presidents’ handlers can aggregate and analyze as direct feedback.

In Nigeria President Olusegun Obasanjo started the Presidential Media chat where a host of journalists would ask him questions and the rest of the public would participate via phone call-in. President Goodluck Jonathan continued this practice. The incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari, has held only one live session since he came into office on 29th May, 2015. This was on 30th December, 2015.
Live media chats are not a picnic. Ask any brand communicator and his/her response will give you an inkling to how tricky they are. The feedback is also not always rosy (the more reason H.E. Ortom deserves a pat on the back). In fact criticisms trailed several of Jonathan’s sessions so much so that each session must have been a nightmarish experience for him and his handlers. Don’t forget all the social media memes and trolls that followed each outing. That Buhari has had only one chat, described by a Punch columnist, Abimbola Adelakan as a “tepid performance” since assuming office, could be down to the groundswell of negative feedback his only outing got.

As perilous as live media chats maybe, any sincere government would crave the opportunity to have its leading light interact with the governed as this serves as a barometer to gauge public opinion. Public opinion shapes the reality of governments, or at least in a democracy they should. As noted above it could also be a slippery slope that could spell doom for the proponents rather than the good they seek to gain. This is down to two key factors, its very nature, a live broadcast devoid of “control” and the adeptness of the principals’ handlers. The lack of the later profoundly exacerbates the precariousness of the former.

ORTOM GAFFES: SNAKES, OPPOSITION, DEBTORS AND TITHES
H.E. Ortom, to my humble estimation committed several unforced gaffes that ended up marring his good intentions for holding the radio chat on 2nd August 2017. For the purpose of this discourse I will single out just two and share the excerpts of the transcript of his chat that bear witness to my opinion.

The first gaffe.

MODERATOR:
Mr Governor, while you were away, actually, some issues trended, especially on the social media that perhaps need addressing one of which is the allegation about rearing of snakes. What do you have to say about it?

H.E. ORTOM:
YOU KNOW, IT IS AN UNFORTUNATE DEVELOPMENT. THE OPPOSITION IN BENUE STATE HAVE NO ISSUE AGAINST THIS GOVERNMENT AND SO THEY ARE ALWAYS FABRICATING THINGS TO GENERATE DISCUSSIONS THAT WILL DISTRACT THE GOVERNMENT’S ATTENTION AND WILL ALSO PORTRAY THE GOVERNMENT IN BAD LIGHT AND MAKE IT LOOK AS IF WE ARE DOING NOTHING. BUT LOOK AT THEM, THEY HAD THE OPPORTUNITY, WHAT DID THEY DO? LOOTING. YOU KNOW, LOOK AT WHAT THEY WERE DOING, DESTROYING PEOPLES FAMILIES AND SO ON. AND, CAN THEY COMPARE THEMSELVES WITH WHAT WE HAVE DONE WITHIN THESE TWO YEARS DESPITE THE CHALLENGES THEY THREW US INTO? WE CAME IN, WE INHERITED A DEFICIT TREASURY, SALARY ARREARS OF OVER N69BILLION. AND THE SAME PEOPLE WILL GO BACK AND BE CHALLENGING THIS GOVERNMENT FOR BORROWING MONEY TO PAY THESE ARREARS OF SALARIES THEY LEFT BEHIND. SO THEY ARE ALWAYS FABRICATING THESE. THE OTHER TIME IT WAS WHEELBARROW. WHAT IS WHEELBARROW? WHAT IS SNAKES? THEY TALK ABOUT WHEELBARROW, WHEELBARROW THAT WE EVEN CAME OUT AND CLARIFIED THAT THEY WERE DONATED TO US BY FEDERAL AGENCY, EMERGENCY RELIEF AGENCY, FEDERAL EMERGENCY RELIEF AGENCY. BUT THEY STILL WENT ON AND ON AND WAS TALKING ABOUT WHEELBARROW, BUT OF COURSE THOSE PEOPLE WHO COLLECTED THOSE WHEELBARROWS WERE VERY HAPPY WE DONATED IT TO THEM. THE ONLY MISTAKE WHICH I QUESTIONED AND QUERIED THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY WAS FOR INSCRIBING MY NAME ON THE WHEELBARROW. THERE WAS NO NEED BECAUSE IT DIDN’T GENERATE FROM ME. IT DIDN’T COME FROM ME. IT WAS A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AGENCY THAT BROUGHT IT, SO HE WOULD HAVE INSCRIBED THE NAME OF THE FEDERAL AGENCY ON IT. IT WASN’T ME, AND I QUERIED HIM BUT THEY WENT ON AND ON. SO THAT SHOWS THAT THIS PEOPLE ARE EMPTY, THERE IS NO ISSUE TO CONFRONT THIS GOVERNMENT BASED ON WHAT WE ARE DOING.
Otherwise I will say that it is not even a crime doing a snake farm. Today I read on social media an associate professor who is researching on snake, and he said, South Africa exports snakes and gets a lot of money and several other countries and they are also doing it in Nigeria. So it is not a crime...I understand a renowned General in the army has a snake farm in Nigeria here. There is nothing wrong. I have not seen any law banning anybody from owning a snake farm but that is not my programme or on my agenda. I am a farmer, I am into several sectors of farming but not in snake farm. Rather for the past 20 years I have been working and saving lives, you can go to St Theresa’s Hospital, now Bishop Murray Hospital, I have retained the services of that hospital for the past 20 years and they treat snake bite victims who are usually peasant people who have no resources and sometimes for a dangerous snake life puff adder or viper that can kill within a short time you spend as much as a million or more than one million naira to treat one victim. These I have been footing right from when I started Oracle Business Limited. That was one of the things that empowered me to establish a foundation so that whatever profit we are getting, we are leaving part of the funds. And since then I have been doing this. And it will amaze you that between May, June , no between April and June, 3 months, these are usually farming period when people go to the farm and so usually the snake get their victims around this time more. Between this time alone, within these three months I was given a bill of N33million for more than a hundred people. These are people who would have died and thousands of people have been save as a result of this  work that I am doing with St Theresa’s Hospital and Rahama Hospital. So instead of looking for people because, the financial burden, though I am governor now, but the burden is so much on me. I would have loved somebody researching and saying that how can we do to help because it is much. And if I have my way, because of the pains that these snakes bring to families and to individuals I would have eliminated all snakes in Benue State as far as I am concerned. But I am not into snake farming but I want to clarify that it is not an offence for anybody who will decide to go into it. Because snake, the venom if you harvest it, it is used for the anti-snake venom. So it is money, people make it. It is not an offence, worldwide there is nowhere that somebody has been accused of having a snake farm.
SO WHAT I AM SAYING IS THIS OPPOSITION IN BENUE STATE ARE VERY EMPTY PEOPLE, THEY HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER SO THEY WILL JUST GO AND GENERATE THIS THINGS. THEY WILL TALK ABOUT SALARY, AND THEN TALK ABOUT SNAKE, AND TALK ABOUT WHEELBARROWS. THEY SHOULD TALK ABOUT THINGS THAT CAN REALLY MOVE BENUE FORWARD, THEY SHOULD CHALLENGE ME. I AM READY TO ACCEPT SUPERIOR ARGUMENTS ON ANYTHING THAT COMES.

So where is the gaffe in the governor’s response? A simple word count of his response shows he used 860 words to answer the question about snakes, of these words, he used 373 or 43.3% of the words to talk about the opposition. His outrage at the opposition went on for the first 3 minutes before he even answered the actual question posed to him!
What this says is that, the governor is allowing critics define who he is. And his obsession with the opposition is in turn beclouding his vision. By elevating their antics to prominence as he has done in the above highlighted sections of his response, he is unwittingly giving the opposition some form of victory and space within his own space. Remember he was the one at the studio and not the opposition but he made his talk all about them. This serves him no purpose. It only gives the opposition verve.

A leader should be strong in the face of critics. In today’s social-media crazy world a leader will have plenty of fans and critics. The key is to do your work and avoid either praise or criticism get to you. Clearly, H.E. Ortom has allowed the opposition to get to him.

This piece by Jon Gordon in his book, THE POWER OF POSITIVE LEADERSHIP may comfort him;
"Positive leaders don’t lead because they want recognition or enemies. They lead because there is something they must do, build, create, transform, and change. They lead because it’s who they are and what they are meant to do. However, with leadership comes scrutiny, praise, critics, and attacks. A leader could find a cure for cancer and would still have some people criticize them for it. There was even once a leader who transformed the world by feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and loving the unlovable, and yet he was killed for it. If you are a leader, expect to be attacked. Positive leadership doesn’t mean you won’t be criticized. It means you have the grit and belief to overcome it. Positive leaders don’t lead in a tranquil sea of positivity, but through the storms of adversity and negativity. Leadership is knowing that the critics will criticize you while still saying what needs to be said and doing what needs to be done."

The second gaffe.

MODERATOR:
Your Excellency, let’s talk about what will move Benue forward. Talking about development issues, as Governor-elect you took a trip to China, and after your inauguration you have been to China several times and with high hopes and expectations from Benue people that they are going to get dividends of democracy yielding from economic growth of the state especially in the area of wealth creation. Some of your campaign promises were to drive the economy of the state through industrialization and also to make the welfare of the workers and pensioners your priority as well as to provide free education for citizens. (“Free education when the economy improves” interjects H.E. Ortom) You talked about halftime, we are in the halftime now, what effort is your administration, what pragmatic steps are you taking to address these issues of industrialization, welfare of workers and pensioners, as well as what we are talking about, creating wealth for the state and not depending on federal allocation from the federation account.

H.E. ORTOM:
( This is just a part of his response). On welfare of staff especially, it is something we placed  as a matter of priority. And currently we have declared a state of emergency on payment of salaries. The implication is that we give priority attention to payment of salaries against other projects of government we are supposed to do and also ensure that we do proper screening to eliminate those ghost workers that are collecting salaries and draining the purse of government. This area we have done very well. We inherited a wage bill of over N8.2 billion naira when we came both at the local government and at the state, but based on the screening and the prudent manner and the blocking of leakages that we instituted we’ve been able to bring it down to N7.8billion at the state and local government (levels). It would have been more but we had to introduce minimum wage to teachers because they were denied minimum wage. Others were collecting, teachers were not collecting so we came and we did introduce the minimum wage, so we are standing at N7.8billion but we believe that with the current screening being conducted, headed by the deputy governor will also bring it down. The idea is to ensure we pay genuine workers who have worked and they should get their money at the end of the day. And despite all the challenges we have done well. And the impression sometimes that we have not paid salaries for 10 months, we have not owed anyone for 10 months. It is not in Benue State to the best of my knowledge. No one is owed up to 10 months....

So for every two months, what we have been doing is we pay all category of workers salary both at the state and local government one month salary. But I think that some workers are not being fair to us. And here too the opposition comes in, people who are not workers, who are not on the pay list will go and say “Ortom pay us salary”. And they are not workers. Which salary? They are fake workers. But some workers are not fair to us because at least we have been open, it’s not that we have hidden money anywhere. Whatever comes is on the table for everyone to see. So instead of trying to say the truth that, yes last month we did not collect but this month we collected. THEY WILL NOT SAY IT BECAUSE THEY WANT TO HIDE FROM THEIR PASTORS. THEY DON’T WANT TO PAY TITHES AND OFFERINGS. (GENERAL LAUGHTER). AND THOSE WHO ARE OWING DON’T WANT TO PAY. WHEN THEY SEE THEIR CREDITORS COMING IN THEY SAY “KAI THIS ORTOM YOU DON’T WANT TO PAY US SALARY THAT IS WHAT IS HAPPENING” (GENERAL LAUGHTER).

HERE IS WHAT I THINK
In the run up to the 2015 elections in Benue State, the non-payment of salaries by the government of the day was one of the game changers in favour of the All Progressive Congress (APC). They capitalized on this failure to gain support as they promised a speedy resolution of the salary logjam once elected into office. The people bought their promises and the rest, as they say, is history.
That the present government has not been able to keep to that promise of paying the salaries owed workers under whatever guise they claim, is not good enough. However, what is totally appalling, is the governor and his team displaying the sort of insensitivity to the plight of the workers by their mirthfulness as is seen in the highlighted part of his response to the question of workers’ salaries.This is unconscionable. It is a slur on the long suffering workers of Benue State and their dependents to describe them, even in a joke, as liars, dishonest people, who lie to their pastors and creditors. This is as undignifying as it gets. Nobody deserves such abuse!

That was H.E Ortom’s gaffe number two. Making a joke, a mockery of the pains of the Benue workers.

A WARP
H.E. Ortom, projects his administration and his actions as based on the fear of the Christian God he worships. He often interjects his submissions with biblical allusions and references. Even his decision to contest in 2019 is kept in abeyance until he hears from God. It is then only fair to hold him accountable whenever his actions or that of his administration are at variance with his projection. Mahatma Ghandi once said, “To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.”

In commending him for his relative accessibility to the people, more has to be done. The radio chat for instance should not be anchored by journalists who seem to be kowtowing to the governor, there should be a more broad based participation by independent journalists not affiliated to the government who can ask him more probing questions. The phone lines should be more, and a call waiting facility used to include more participation. And the whole event can be streamed live via Facebook Live for yet more participation. Facebook Live is not expensive.

H.E. Ortom should be more circumspect in the face of real weighty issues. Making fun of people’s predicament robs them of dignity. A man without dignity is nothing.

He also must understand that being fixated on the opposition, as he is now, amounts to poor judgement. Opposition no matter how vile they are, are a part and parcel of the democracy we practise. H.E. Ortom is not in any way facing the tide of criticism President Obama and Jonathan faced or President Donald Trump is facing. He should therefore focus on the work he was elected to do and not regale us with tales of past mismanagement. The people knew all about the mismanagement, that is why they voted into power.

On a last note Gordon’s words suffice again, “History doesn’t remember the critics. It remembers the one who withstood criticism to accomplish something great.”