Our nation’s discourse can feel like a minefield, making it hard to maintain our witness in these divisive times. It is usual to find some people only on the wrong side of reason, at the seedy confluence where healthy cognition and logical thought are glossed over. Topical issues are assumed, like an invidious chore, through lenses tainted only by unmeaning perception. It is in this context that I ask this pertinent question- why must anyone want to fight or undernine Dr Dennis Brutu Otuaro, the Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme? He is where he is because he earned it. When retired military Generals took turns at the apogee of PAP leadership, where were these desperate crooners and faltered social ombudsmen? What happened to the voices and press releases of these emergency and mischievous social media delinquents that now struts the domain of hate and cynical ethnic politics? Dennis Otuaro to all intent and purposes had long aspired for this job. Equally, suitably disposed proponents had registered their interests. In the heat of rounding up his PhD, and returning for his convocation at the seminal point of departure from the University of Benin, he was practically all eyes and ears on this job. He has been an irredeemable ardent lover of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and had once told me to watch – that his presidency would drive Nigeria in innovative and transformative directions never before known. I am not surprised not long after Bola Ahmed Tinubu took over government of the Federation of Nigeria, he appointed Dr Dennis Brutu Otuaro as the Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme.
The many ill – conceived hawks that seek to straddle social and political spaces had thought another military retiree would take over the reins of the Amnesty Programme but it was to Dr Dennis Brutu Otuaro the light shown. Also amazingly intriguing is the fact that he is a civilian from Delta state. It has never been heard that from the time AVM Ochuko Ararile through Maj. Gen Godwin Abe, Brig. Gen P.T Boroh, Dixion Dikio to Brig Paul Ndiomu, and with the exceptions of Timi Alaibe, Keme Kuku, Charlse Dokubo who are civilans, we never get to hear these sort of trepidation and reckless bickerings that is more sinister in intent than the dissuading narrative about the leadership of PAP they intend to convey. I just don’t understand why this group always want to divide something. What is this – some kind of imperial syndrome, revanchist mania, or a form of territorial obsession disorder? As a matter of fact it is the first time the presidential Amnesty program will be having an urbane non military representative of Delta state with a PhD from a first line University of Nigeria at its helm. And if this is the case, why has it become apparent to fan the take him down embers and to, in the process orchestrate an evil plot to misrepresent the quality service delivery commitment of Dr Brutu Otuaro.
It is obvious that the instant calumniating campaigns again the PAP and by extension the transparent leadership of Dr Dennis Brutu Otuaro is borne out of a miscarry of perception triggered by the plaguing syndrome of “if a person is not from my ethnic group” everything he represents should be resisted. How long would a seeming social complex continue to instigate people to live in sub human rage and depressing moral apathy?
Unintelligent ethnic opposition is when one cannot fathom the significance of having a competent man at the helm of an organisation doing his best to use his good offices to salvage the felt needs of sundry people across ethnic groups. This together with the documented ex agitators and militants undertaking basic and specific rehabilitation and resettlement trainings have ensured that our people far and near are visibly impacted by the Amnesty program. Rather than wage wars of abstract and unfounded accusations and gossips against PAP and Dr Dennis Brutu Otuaro, we need to forge links and use these links to keep each other honest so as to sustain our sense of purpose, gain clarity and make the best of our resources against foes and tasks that seem more formidable with each passing day.
Neorealist and functionalist thoughts seem to agree that when leadership evolves and become easy to meet platform for social remediation in a broader cross cultural engagement, it bolsters cooperation, reduce power imbalance and promote interdependence.
My prayer is that may Dr Dennis Brutu Otuaro succeeds. May President Bola Ahmed Tinubu be in good health and may he win the 2027 presidential elections against the charade of the many night soil politicians. May this “if it is not my people” group be further entrenched in frustration and may Almighty God take their expectations away and may he consign their sophistries and avidity for histrionics to the scrap heap of forgotten