Asịnaasị: Demarketing by Proxy

M.O. ENE

Demarketing has measurable outcomes. In politics, it has one primary purpose: to diminish a candidate with trash talk and petty propaganda. Usually, it comes with the promotion of another candidate. In the curious and current demarketing of an Enugu State gubernatorial candidate, no attempt is made to promote any other candidate. Thus, the hollow harvest has had a reverse effect: educating more people about the man of the moment: Peter Ndubuisi Mbah, Esq.

A man who did well in business and strives to serve his people as a governor should be judged on his own records, not crucified on the cross of others. Should we ask questions? Yes! Reasonable questions were asked; satisfactory answers were provided. Also, one can source primary information to dismiss beer-parlor banters. Still, even with Google and sundry sources, fake news flourishes

Some utterances are based on ignorance of the facts, not that people want to be mean. Until we make good-faith efforts to educate society, we may borrow from the last prayer of Jesus and say, ’Pardon them for they know not what they write.’ However, it is no longer politics when those who know better resort to tarnishing the image of another using other people’s perceived problems; it is something else. It stinks.

Let’s pause and ponder a popular Igbo expression for informed demarketing. When notorious market gossips want to spice stories, they add salt and pepper. Since lies have short legs, they add extra-long legs for more momentum and to obstruct verifications until the stories go viral!

How? Simple: “á sị na á sị…!” An Igbo native speaker understands “they say that….” A good student of Igbo sees the verbatim meaning: “they said that they said”! An indefinite pronoun, ‘á’ represents anyone or anything: he, she, it, or they. By using this peculiar pronoun, gossipers cloud the source of stories. We do not usually ask for specifics. We understand the hide-the-source game of gossip. When one asks for the source and permission to verify, the information flow recedes.

With this dubious device, gossips provide extra ambiguity by doubling the pronoun and building a binary veil of vague validity. Unless one has a discerning mind, whatever is said after the “asịnaasị” introduction sounds believable.

While it is not my place to defend, deny, or dismiss telltales, I believe that something dies in us when we fail to scrutinize suspicious submissions. We expect an elevated discussion of issues in 2023 campaigns, not fanning of falsehoods after great efforts have been made to clear a closet of cobwebs.

Rabid reports require robust rebuttals. In a 24/7 news cycle, even obvious fakes lodge as urban legends. Peter Mbah is his own man. What Senator Chimaroke Nnamani said was that Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi will decide his successor, as per PDP pattern and subject to electoral processes.

Funding of Pinnacle Oil’s $1 billion Lekki signature setup is an open book. Local and foreign banks are in the mix. Enugu State did not make that much money in four years. Did anyone check the records of the Corporate Affairs Commission? If Nnamani and Ugwuanyi are not listed, it is safe to assume that Mbah owns Pinnacle Oil & Gas. Let’s give him his deserved kudos for stellar successes and stop the continued clouding of a settled situation.

Then again, it is not every rainfall that requires the removal of cooking utensils.

@aladimma