Propaganda and Misinformation: Comrade Uche Chukwumerijie, the Ages of Lies and the Making of Dictatorship.

"For the first time in the history of Oduduwa, Aare Onakakanfo ran away from the war front." - Comrade Uche Chukwumerijie, 1993.

Comrade Uche Chukwumerijie, a Ndigbo, was a civilian, an activist, and a Senator before he died. Above all, he was selected as head of the Information Department in the hastily constituted Interim Government set up by IBB following the annulment of the results of the June 12, 1993, Presidential election, won by MKO Abiola. As at the time of the election and thereafter, Chief MKO Abiola held the tile of the Aare Onakakafo of the Yoruba land.

No soon had IBB disappeared from Aso Rock than darkness began to envelop the land. But first, the IBB's Interim Concoction must sell its Interim Wahala to Nigeria and the global community. And that was how and when Uche Chukwumerijie, hitherto, a Comrade and an activist, became a celebrated propagandist and Misinformation Guru. And he did more than what IBB and the Interim Government bargained for.

The Comrade embarked on a voyage of no retreat no surrender from one corner of the country to another, not just to market the Interim Government to Nigeria, but he took one step further. He went about discrediting MKO, a victim who contested and won a free and fair Presidential election, the best ever in the history of Nigeria democracy.

It was at one of the misinformation crusades, somewhere in the old Gongola State that the Comrade took caution to the wind. He went off script - or simply as rehearsed - and turned MKO to piece of shit and a coward who couldn't live up to his title. He told his bemused audience, according to the Guardian Newspaper, that indeed, "for the first time in the history of Oduduwa, the Aare Onakakanfo of the Yoruba land, ran away from the war front." And it was also headline news on national TV Network.

Brutal, strategic and calculated as IBB was, he didn't bargain for that. And chances are that he didn't even know the history of the Aare Onakakanfo of Yoruba land. But the Comrade did and made a fool of himself. A Northerner couldn't espouse such sacrilegious baloney or descend so low to offend the gods. A Southerner did, just as Dr. Chuba Okadigbo branded the comment of Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Zik of Africa, as the "ranting of an ant" when the beaded Chuba was an Adviser to President Shehu Shagari.

Historically, the Aare Onakakanfo was a Yoruba warrior, the Commander in Chief of the Oduduwa Armed Forces. (Oduduwa as used here, connotes the Yoruba race). And legend has it that he didn't retreat or surrender at any battle, no matter the enormity of the casualties on his side until he decimates the last man standing on the opposite side. And as of June 12, 1993, when the Presidential election was conducted and until he left the country, Chief MKO Abiola was the holder of that title.

And for Comrade Uche Chukwumerijie to concoct that anomaly, flipping a celebrated historical creed and legacy of the Yoruba people upside-down at a public gathering, and lampooned a helpless Nigerian who contested and won a Presidential election, but was denied the mandate, shows the level of buffoonery and mental servitude of the once activist Comrade. The truth is, praising-worshiping a character who has no senses of sight and sound is the worst form of mental servitude and undue diplomacy.

MKO came back from exile but died mysteriously a few days later, almost at the same time with Sani Abacha. On the other hand, the False Comrade, the Propaganda Emeritus, who condemned and passed a judgment of death on MKO was to contest and won a Senatorial race in the civilian dispensation that evolved after the death of Sani Abacha and MKO. MKO, no doubt, symbolized freedom and democracy. The Comrade wasn't. That he later benefited from the struggle, which he vehemently opposed and which MKO died for, exemplified the Nigeria tragedy that is also evolving once again. And it must stop.

Today, there are hundreds of Comrade Uche Chukwumerijie and Dr. Chuba Okadigbo masquerading as the patriots and dispassionate commentators in Nigeria social media scene. You know them, I know them, and we know them. They are the enemies within. Adolf Hitler would not have survived a day longer in power, but for the vociferous voices and opinionating of influence peddlers and propagandists around him. If you must win the war against dictatorship, corruption, and insecurity, you must stand up against lies and misinformation.