The reward of liars is that even when they tell the truth no one believes
them. Aristotle was asked in Diogenes Lartius “The Lives and Opinions
of Eminent Philosophers” , what those who tell lies gain by it and he
answered “that when they speak truth they are not believed”.
In one of Aesop’s Fables”The Boy Who Cried Wolf”a shepherd boy repeatedly
tricks nearby villagers into thinking a wolf is attacking his flock. When
one actually does appear and the boy again calls for help, the villagers
believe that it is another false alarm .
The lesson drawn from the above illustrations is that it is not healthy to
persistently strive to attract sympathy through fraudulent means because
it seriously erodes ones integrity and credibility .I wish the All
Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA governorship candidate and former
Managing Director of Diamond, Dr. Alex Otti would learn a lesson from the
above illustrations.
His assassination claims have continuously changed form,narration, setting
and locale. In the latest episode, Otti claimed gunmen attacked his guest
house at Maitama, Abuja, at about 2am Friday, and shot a policeman on duty
to death.
According to him,the gunmen scaled through the wire gauze of the wall
fence of the guest house, headed for his apartment and ransacked
everywhere, after killing the policeman.
In his words:”Only God knows what would have happened to me, if I had
spent the night in Abuja.
I had spent the whole previous week in that house until Thursday, when
I left for Abia to attend the sitting of the election tribunal in which I
filed a petition to claim my denied victory at the poll.
I believe it was a clear assassination attempt and I thank God and pray
that such attempt will not happen again”.
In a swift reaction, Abia State government punctured Otti’s claim. Chief
Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Godwin Adindu in a statement saidÂ
enquiries with the Force Public Relations Officer (FPPRO), Mr. Emma
Ojukwu, revealed  that the incident did not exactly take place at
Otti guest house neither was the policeman of the Special Protection
Unit(SPU)Â killed in Otti residence.
The statement quoted the Force PRO as saying that there was an attack in
the Maitama area of Otti private guest house, but that the attack was
not exactly at his residence and that the policeman killed was not killed
in his residence, adding that the policeman was killed in the building
housing NESTOIL, which is a totally different compound from where Otti
guest house is located.
The Abuja episode is one in the the series of Otti’s assassination drama
.Prior to the recent claim, Otti had before the general elections said
that there was an assassination attempt on his life.
In that episode, he claimed that soldiers numbering over 10 invaded his
Umuguru, Isiala Ngwa South residence and was accosted by one of the police
guards. And after an argument the military men left.
Recently, Otti also alleged that emissaries were sent to him by his
opponent persuading him to drop his case atvthe elections petitions
tribunal. But since Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu challenged Otti to make public the
identities of the emissaries he sent to him (Otti), the allegation died a
natural death.
Otti’s attitude poses a strong moral burden :What does a man of his status
wants to achieve by peddling falsehood?
If he fails to urgently substantiate his claims, it will lend credence to
the position of the state government that he(Otti) is plotting to
influence the tribunal through emotional pressure†to move the
sittings to Abuja.
On the other hand, could it be that Otti is indulging in diversionary
tactics to whip up sentiments and move attention away from the main
issues at tribunal?
For a man that is already weighed down by moral baggage of swapping his
origin to suit his political ambition, the time to save his face is now!
-Ukegbu is a journalist and public affairs analyst. He wrote this piece
from Umuahia.