By Ikem Okuhu
On June 24, 2018, I had arrived Government House, Enugu, at the invitation of the State Governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi. Although Malachy Agbo, the person through whom the invitation came, gave a few hints, the purpose was not made clear until I was seated before the Governor in a hall I was to later learn is the Banquet Hall of the Governor’s office.
I had met the Governor at least five times before, but this particular meeting was brisk, brusque and very business-like and I think that was why the offer to join his government took me a bit off-balance.
I did not even have the chance to think properly. Yes, I was interested in serving my people in some capacity, but the way the offer was thrown at me gave me no chance to think. I was told I had already started, even while the interview was less than half-way done.
In the end, a YES was my answer and I was given three weeks to return to Lagos and get set for the work of an SSA and, as he said during the interview, a Chief Press Secretary-in waiting.
I fully assumed duties in the second week of July 2018 and with that, the most frustrating 18 months of my life. It is a journey of deliberate frustration and one I concluded was deliberately designed to bring me to ruins.
Thankfully, I saw the handwriting early enough and gave myself some eight months of strategic exit planning. By December 31, 2019, exactly 18 months after I assumed duties as an aide to Governor Ugwuanyi, I cleared my office of all personal effects and walked away.
I wanted to keep this quiet and not appear to either be mourning or moaning. In doing that, I perceived that I was also expected to not comment on some issues for, or against which I had strong opinion, the conventional thinking being that having been a part of a government, you always will be in a difficult position to criticise when you feel things are not being done well.
So, when a number of issues came up and I weighed in strongly on them, contrary to establishment expectations, the retinue of government drummer-boys swooped on me, claiming quite vocally, strongly, that I was bitter because the Governor sacked me from appointment.
From the social media to the Enugu social circuit, this absolutely untrue rhetoric gained grounds and that was when I told myself that the only way to respond to the rumours and bad blood was to put down everything I experienced as an aide to Governor Ugwuanyi in black and white, documenting for posterity, how I came in and how I walked away.
I kept a good diary on paper and in my head (and God blessed me with a good one, even if I have to say so myself) and with effortless ease, I have been able to pour out the truth (the whole truth and nothing but the truth) about my walk through the gates of Government House, Enugu, and how I walked out.
It is a 264-page piece of history, our history and took the better of three months to write.
We are still putting things together for the public presentation, most likely to take place in Abuja at a date we will soon announce, but we are going to be randomly sharing excerpts from the book every week as part of the pre-launch sensitisation.
The sales outlets in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Aba, Awka and all 17 local government areas of Enugu State will also soon be announced for ease of pick-up by those who are interested.
Keep the lighters on.
• Okuhu is a brand expert, journalist and author.