WAKE UP: Celebrating Lauretta Onochie, our loving Madam Due Process, at 62

By BASHIR ADEFAKA

As for the leading opposition in the trade, question has been asked: How can a people, whose party ruled for first 16 of 22 years of Fourth Republic without any single evidence of development and progress, be the leading force in denigrating a woman that has done not more or less than being loyal to her country in her capacity as Digital and Social Media Aide to the President of the Republic? I wonder what they expected her to do.

Like a Lioness in the Desert, President Muhammadu Buhari’s Special Assistant on Digital and Social Media, Lauretta Onochie, is now in her rightful place by fate. A star hitherto plotted for deep bottom of the ocean, because beneath water is not the natural place of a star, she has been lifted up to the sky where all eyes – the world over – now behold the glitters of a jewel that the Ada Anioma of Delta State represents.  That is the newly discovered Nigeria’s Madam Due Process.

I have wondered why the hate and opposition to the very simple presidential thoughtfulness of making her one of qualified candidates to steer the affairs of the all-important Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Nigeria. I lingered over every question but have always retired home with no answer. Not because I have asked silly question deserving not the honour of an answer but because, those who make the allegations contained in the expressed hate and opposition to her confirmation by the distinguished Senate of the Federal Republic have no reason for making them in the first place.

I have asked: Is it that she is not qualified? That she has record of corruption hung on her neck? That she has history of ever being an anti-Nigerian person? All questions returned negative. But why the attacks – right, left and centre? Hypocrisy! Nothing but that.  More saddening: Those that were involved in the opposition and attacks on nomination of the now screened Nigerian Patriot have a leg traced to the ruling party of which President Buhari, Lauretta’s nomination source, is Leader.  How? Question for another time which must be answered not just by those that plotted but those who have been hurt by the attitude.

As for the leading opposition in the trade, question has been asked: How can a people, whose party ruled for first 16 of 22 years of Fourth Republic without any single evidence of development and progress, be the leading force in denigrating a woman that has done not more or less than being loyal to her country in her capacity as Digital and Social Media Aide to the President of the Republic? I wonder what they expected her to do. Perhaps they would have been good that Lauretta would sit right in the Villa and defend their corruption – past and present as well as their administration without integrity – against her own boss, President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, whose times now and in history, have been identified with major tangible developments that Nigeria has ever witnessed.

We all watched and listened to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, when in the buildup to 2015 election amidst the bombardment of political propaganda flying all over the place, said Buhari as his Federal Commissioner of Petroleum Resources ran the ministry free of his input and influence as Military Head of State and, so, that it was all his (Buhari’s) own idea that he deemed fit that Nigeria could not have oil here and be importing refined products. So, he built all the petroleum refineries the country ever boasted of.

Unfortunately, administrations that came after the one served by him neither improved on the Buhari legacy nor built a new one. Over 40 years of his vacating the office, after a short shot at the Presidency as Military Head of State 1984-1985), President Buhari returned in 2015 with a promising starting looking forward to a greater finishing. He repaired the refineries but some people, on the claims of self determination as owners of the oil after their candidate of choice lost election, were watched by their governors and leaders destroying those oil installations until it was no longer economically wise and sensible to continue to spend money on them. The President rather encouraged and empowered private investors in full fledge and modular refineries. There we are.

President Buhari also touched the Niger Delta’s protracted problems of many years and found them to be caused by corruption in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). He believes that trillions pumped into the NDDC since it was created in 2001 should have made the Niger Delta region a Dubai of a sort and set up a Forensic Audit programme to unravel the extent of why it did not. Here started the sin of Lauretta Onochie. She, as a real daughter of the soil, was happy that here comes a leader, who is for once ready to tackle from the root the problem of poverty and environmental degradation that has bedeviled her all-important region for long. She stands with that leader who is committed to making that happen and that happens to be the President, her boss.

Sadly, the enmity she incurred from doing that was allowed by God knows how many of them to extend to attempted blockage of her nomination as National Commissioner of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).  Those making this attempt started saying she is appointee of President Muhammadu Buhari but when they saw that, that held no water, they quickly switched to claiming that she is a card carrying member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).  The interesting thing is, like journalists, lawyers, civil societies and politicians were the albatross around the neck of this fine officer of the Nigeria’s Presidency, they were also journalists, lawyers, civil societies and politicians, who insisted on the truth and told the truth without pay to the truth seekers and which the Dr. Ahmed Lawan-led Senate of the country saw to arrive at its decision to finally screen her and other nominees of President Buhari for the position of National Commissioner of INEC on Thursday 8 July 2021.

In her response to the issues raised against her in petitions before Senate, Onochie disclosed that she was invited from the United Kingdom in 2014 to join the All Progressives Congress (APC) and to work for President Muhammadu Buhari.  She added that since the second election in 2019 that brought President Muhammadu Buhari into office, she resigned as a member of the ruling party and also left active politics.

She said: “Distinguished members of the Committee, I am aware of the numerous petitions against me particularly on the current INEC Commissioner. The woman is from Delta State where I also come from, but she is married to a Cross River man and she is representing Cross River and not Delta.

“Since 2019 elections, I have removed myself from active politics and even in the ongoing APC membership drive, I didn’t register and currently, I am not a member of any political party,” Lauretta Onochie, who also said those who know her for saying things as they are and insisting on Due Process are the ones attempting to block her confirmation, maintained in a way that finally silenced the noise about her nomination.

All of these have happened with surprise coincidence with her 62nd birthday, which would only make me to think that Nigeria actually appreciate the body language expert by making the consideration and screening for the position of INEC Commissioner as birthday gift to her.

Born on the 9th of July as she is 62 today, Lauretta Onochie is a Nigerian educator and pastor. She is also the Digital and Social Media Aide to the President of Nigeria. Lauretta is originally from Anioma, the Igbo speaking part of Delta State.  Her Anioma Kingdom is made of several communities such as Enuani, Ukwuani, Ndokwa, Ika and Oshimili/Aniocha of Delta State.  She, however, lived most of her early life in Calabar, Cross River State till she was around 18 years old, and had most of her early education there.

Onochie’s educational history spans across several institutions – both in and outside Nigeria. She attended the University of Calabar, where she studied Elementary Education and moved to the University of Benin for a degree in Business Education. After that, Lauretta Onochie travelled abroad for her post-graduate studies. She holds a post-graduate degree in Post Compulsory Education and Training (PCET) from the University of Greenwich, a diploma in Humanitarian Response To Conflict And Disaster and The Health Effects Of Climate Change from Harvard university. Lauretta Onochie became a pastor after she graduated from a Bible college while in Calabar.

Between 2005 and 2011, she was a lecturer at New City College – Epping Forest Campus – a further education college in Loughton, England, offering a wide range of vocational qualifications. From there she moved to become a consultant for AfricaFirst, a post she held up to the time she was appointed Aide to President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria in 2016. Lauretta Onochie is happily married to Mr Onochie with children and grandchildren. Most of her immediate family members reside in the United Kingdom. Contrary to widespread rumours that Lauretta Onochie has been married five times, the media aide and government worker has only been married just once and she fantastically both a mother and a grandmother and her family and children live in England.

All hail the Ada Anioma! All hail the Nigerian Senate!! And I, in my own capacity as a Nigerian patriot and believer in patriotic journalism like Onochie, salute Madam Due Process at 62.  Happy Birthday Mama!

*WAKE UP is opinion article column of Akure, Ondo State prince and Lagos-based Journalist, Bashir Adefaka.  Reach him via his email: omope72@gmail.com