Right before the searching eyes of Rivers people, a wonder is taking place. It is not Jerry Needam’s ability to blab endless inanities or his notorious “noise-someness” bedraggled in the garb of illogically thoughtless, relentless, formless and annoyingly meaningless press statements that manifest his strangely magical appurtenances, but his knack to be different persons at different times like Bob Saget the American actor who famously said ” I become a chameleon wherever I am” in one of his interviews.
Were Jerry NEEDAM an actor, he would probably have eclipsed Bob Saget in his chameleonic ability, but unfortunately, the self-styled Pastor is the Special Assistant (media) to Bro Felix Obuah, the Rivers PDP Chairman.
In that role, recently, Jerry NEEDAM has been transforming into different national and international figures. At one time, live from Port Harcourt, capital city of Rivers State, he momentarily metamorphosed into CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, CBE, the British-Iranian journalist and television host who is the Chief International Correspondent for CNN and host of CNN International’s flagship global affairs interview program called Amanpour.
One fine morning, Jerry woke up and discovered that he was Christaine Amanpour. Never mind the gender incompatibility. Never mind the millions of miles in mental capacity between Jerry NEEDAM and the International cable television celebrity. Somehow, Jerry NEEDAM was just Amanpour hosting the man he loves to hate, Rt. Hon Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, on his program right from CNN’s studio in New York City.
That morning, in that program watched by millions of world citizens, the new Ogoni-born CNN’s Amanpour grilled Amaechi to the extent that the former Governor of Rivers State, under intense heat from a barrage of pointed questions, admitted to stashing the sum of over 757 million U.S. Dollars in a foreign U.S. Bancorp/Minnesota account. Once the new Amanpour elicited that coveted confession from Mr Amaechi, he closed his eyes and before one could say Jack, was transported in the bowel of a spirit aircraft from Newyork City to Rivers State Sanitation Authority in Port Harcourt from where, after coming to himself as Pastor Jerry NEEDAM, Special Adviser Media to the PDP chairman, authored a press statement in which he convicted Amaechi for corruption in the court of his own ink and commanded President BUHARI not to appoint the former Governor as Minister in his government. Jerry NEEDAM further directed EFCC to immediately prosecute Amaechi for corruption on the strength of his Amanpour heroics.
Not done yet with his rattling metamorphosis, Jerry NEEDAM also magically became Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and saw himself in Abuja after waking up from a malaria-induced dream one evening. In that role, startled about the CNN’s Amanpour multi-million Dollars discovery, he wrote the phantom U.S Bancorp/Minnesota bank, begging them that the humongous amount of Dollars discovered in his account was erroneously authorized by him. And then, he came into himself again and become the Jerry NEEDAM which authored another press release telling the world that Amaechi has admitted that the money discovered in his account was deposited in error.
Growing in his ability to transform into many individuals at once, Jerry NEEDAM yet again became the unnamed PRO of the phantom U.S Bancorp/Minnesota bank who acknowledged Amaechi’s letter admitting that 757 million U.S Dollars domiciled in the former governor’s account was deposited in error and went ahead to write President BUHARI of the bank’s readiness to repatriate the funds to Nigeria. That letter is now in possession of President BUHARI.
The most hideous instantaneous transfiguration of Pastor Jerry NEEDAM happened when he simply became Muhammadu BUHARI, President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal of Nigeria. As President BUHARI, operating from the inner sanctum of Aso Rock Villa, he was so angry and disappointed with Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi that he did not only accept the U.S Bancorp bank’s offer to repatriate Amaechi’s loot, but he also ordered for immediate trial of the Director-General of his campaign Organization. The trial is speedily going on, still in the court of Jerry NEEDAM’s ink!
But that there are Nigerians out there who actually gobble down the endless toxic falsehood Jerry Needam and PDP are concocting to smear the image of Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi is the most unfortunate aspect of the story.
It was the late Bola Ige who said that if one can package shit very well, some Nigerians would buy it. The tragedy is not Jerry Needam’s notorious prowess to manufacture insidious lies and concoct stories of abysmal proportion as a bootlicking avenue through which he earns his daily bread from his principals. No, it is not. The tragedy is that there are Nigerians, some of them Phd holders, some of them very highly educated, who, out of the hatred that has been stoked in their heart by reason of the ongoing smear campaign against Amaechi, has been reduced to mere unthinking robots made to swallow hook line and sinker the balderdash emanating from Jerry Needam, PDP and Livingstone Wechie of the phantom “integrity group”. And they swallow with glee, showing gullibility that has never before been seen.
What is very shocking is Jerry Needam’s state of mind. What was he thinking about when he weaved a fictitious story using the name of Amanpour and CNN, the best cable news network in the world? Perhaps, lost in the dark tunnel of his own mischief, he couldn’t fathom that the world as we know is not inhabited by bigoted Rivers PDP members alone. Securely locked in his own analogue mindset, he couldn’t think that we live in an Information Age where anything we want to confirm is only a click away from the button of our ICT devices. He couldn’t remember that there is no story covered by CNN that is not generously reported on the CNN website.
That is the kind of man that authors press statements for Rivers PDP.
The truth, however, is that Amaechi is not the only public figure that has been smeared by elements in Jerry Needam’s mould. President Buhari too was libeled and defamed in one of the most blistering smear campaigns ever witnessed in Nigeria political history during the 2015 electioneering campaign. Billions of naira was frittered away in this unholy endeavor in a bid to render BUHARI unelectable. But Nigerians who knew the truth and who were willing to throw lies to the dustbin were more than those who where willing to swallow the lies told about the President in those shameful documentaries. I am therefore tempted to believe, using the BUHARI example, that Nigerians who know the truth about Amaechi’s service to his people are more than those who are willing to believe the unbelievable fabrication designed to smear him.
But my sympathy goes out to Jerry Needam and his ilk. It doesn’t matter how detestable a task is, once his pay masters ask him to do something, like a surrogate, Jerry Needam must do it. If they ask him to to impersonate Christiane Amanpour of CNN in order to tarnish the image of Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, careless of the consequences to himself and how reasonable members of the society would look at it, Jerry Needam would go ahead and impersonate.
How much of such demonstration of chameleonic capabilities will be expected of Jerry Needam in the days to come? You must think that the man is in a wrong profession. Won’t he be better off acting movies with such marginal abilities?
Kennedy Friday writes from Port Harcourt
