READ : FULL TEXT OF SIR OPUNABO INKO-TARIAH’S RESIGNATION AS GOVERNOR WIKE’S MEDIA AIDE

Sir, Let me start by thanking you for finding me worthy of serving you, and the state in my capacity as SPECIAL ADVISER on Media and Publicity,for this i shall remain grateful..
However, with the unfolding developments, it is irretrievable that my services are no longer needed, and to this end, subterfuges are employed to send the message across.

Sir permit me to dredge up the facts that plank my conviction on.


For the first two Months i worked with you, not a kobo was given to me as Impress/Overload. Apart from paid advertorials and when you briefed the press, every other publications were done at my own cost. Infact, in most cases, announcements made at your behest were paid for by me or done pro- bono.


In the third month, you approved the sum #5,000,000.OO(Five Million Naira) as monthly impress. This was obviously grossly inadequate compared to the pecuniary monthly obligations of my office that gulped #4,800,000,00(Four Million eight hundred thousand).These are obligations inherited from the Rotimi Amaechi’s government. Attached are how the payments are made to bolster my assertions.


With this, i am left with #200,000.00(Two Hundred Thousand Naira) to manage the press for one month. There are times when journalist who cover occasions in government house leave without a kobo.


It is pertinent to also state for the records that no time did i threaten to arrest journalist with policemen. Even when i tried to explain, you rebuffed me.


Furtherance have written several memoranda to you on efficacious Publicity. All memoranda were returned to me untreated have also attached herewith such memoranda.


Sir, i resolved to work with you all my heart, but what i got in return is gratuitous derision.
On several occasions after i noticed your hostile attitude towards me, i approached you for clarification and resolutions but was denied any chance to speak, this prompted my fist resignation move, after which you called and cautioned and asked me to go back to work. Things got festered from them on.


I fell in the bathroom and sustained several head injuries, with the plaster on my head,i met you in the office to explain things to you. All you said was that i should go and treat myself. This was about two months ago, sadly you have never asked me about the injuries.


On Thursday October 22nd 2015,i had a close shave with death on my way from Buguma as assassins riddled “my car”. I sent you a text on the development, but up till now you have never called me to ask questions.


You got back from Abuja on Saturday, after the Tribunal verdict only to spleen on me. Although one may understand that given the Tribunal verdict, you showed no concern at all after the day of your broadcast. On the Sunday, you had solidarity church service, i was with you in the morning for the broadcast, on my way to the church service felt dizzy and went home. 

Shortly after i started vomiting blood. Emeka Woke(COS) and the SSA on protocol were informed and they rushed to my House. I was reliably informed that you were briefed by Engr.Emeka Woke but did not bother to know if i was okay or not. This is bloodcurdling. My life means nothing to you,i sent a memo to you for imprimatur to travel to the United States for medical attention, without asking for money. That memo has been on your desk for about three weeks.


Sir, the climax of your disdain for me was the rebuttal in which you dissociated yourself from an innocuous statement made concerning the judiciary and the verdict.


When you called me on Wednesday to express your disapproval apologized profusely on the phone with a promise that it shall not repeat itself. You asked if i was actually with your or not, and i said I was. This sincere assurance could not placate you because of your mindset. Thank God the likes of O.C.J Okocha, SAN saw nothing wrong in my statement. The rebuttal was a good opportunity for you to ridicule me in public and show disapproval of my still working with you. Your rebuttal obviate the need for further evidence of your absolute loss of confidence in me.

 This i failed to discern when you ordered that i must not be a member of the ONE HUNDRED DAYS IN OFFICE COMMITEE and INDEPENDENCE DAY CELEBRATION COMMITEE. Initially, you claimed the publicity on you was poor and when it improved, you said i was only popularizing myself, you saw nothing good in anything i did. You called me and cautioned me that you were always in the news. You further said that most of us will know our fate after the Tribunal.


On the white paper Press Briefing, it was suggested that I brief the press(and rightly too),but you spurred. The Issue is not my not briefing the press but the contempt. 

Your infectivity to my close shave with death awakened reminiscence of when you said i can go and Die with my father, when i coughed in your office. You worked me out of your office, saying “If i you want to die, go and die with your father “. interesting! This was after you queried why E.C AGUMA,SAN and I were close despite the fact that my dad, the late Hon. Justice Chief Opubo Inko-Tariah sentenced the late Chief E.AGUMA to Death in the Ndabros matter.

It was even E.C Aguma,SAN who even corrected the impression because my late dad never found the Late Chief Aguma guilty and so never ever convicted him.


The issue of your controversial visit to the CJN is still green, you called me two weeks after(On the Day PUNCH Published it online) to ask what my reactions were and why queried why i was not proactive. Tersely, I said i never knew of the visit because you never told me although we were in Abuja together or else i would not have pro-acted. However told the Press the visit was to resolve the thorny issue of a substantive CJ for the state. 

Few days later, you said i told the Press i was not aware and I replied that I never did and that the statement was made to you alone. All I told the press was that your visit was to resolve the vexed issue of substantive CJ.I never knew your allegations was only a veneer.


As a Special Adviser, I have no befitting to accommodate my PAs and SAs yet i carried on.
Let me not bore you further with what I know you dismiss as prolixity.


I sincerely advise that you give penetrating thoughts to your leadership paradigm. The people around you are people ready to die for your sake. Do not dampen their spirits. They are but human beings. Experience is Pre-eminent where advice is ignored.

I conclude Sir, by once more thanking you for opportunity and wish you God’s guidance and blessings as i exit your government.
Thank you and God bless.
Your’s
Sir Opunabo .C. Inko-Tariah.LCIA.ACAIArb