The Anatomy of Petty Envy: A Rejoinder to Anietie Ukpe

The Anatomy of Petty Envy: A Rejoinder to Anietie Ukpe

By Thomas Thomas

There are essays that illuminate, and there are those that merely smoke from the friction of envy. Anietie Ukpe’s recent tantrum, titled “The Anatomy of a Microscopic Interview,” belongs to the latter species (an indignant spasm from one who confuses verbosity for vision and bile for brilliance). His target? Rufai Oseni of Arise News. His crime: asking the Minister of Works, David Umahi, the questions that many Nigerians whisper but few dare to voice.

Let us be clear: it is not Rufai’s tone that unsettles men like Ukpe; it is his fearlessness. In a country where public officials are accustomed to praise-singing journalists who curtsy before titles, Rufai’s interrogative firmness is an aberration; a bright light suddenly switched on in a den of cultivated darkness. Umahi’s discomfort was not born of insult but of exposure. When a journalist dares to demand accountability from a man of power, it is not “aggression,” it is duty.

Ukpe, however, would rather we return to the era when microphones were ornamental, and interviews were rehearsed lullabies. He mistakes politeness for professionalism and mistake Rufai’s intellectual combativeness for chaos. That is the disease of the timid: to call every confrontation of truth “rudeness.”

His sneer at Rufai’s “I have empirical evidence” betrays both ignorance and insecurity. Evidence, dear essayist, does not live only in laboratories and peer-reviewed journals; it also resides in documents, data, and public records. If Oseni says he has empirical evidence, it means he has verified, cross-checked, and weighed his claims against fact. To mock that phrase is to confess an allergy to verification itself (a symptom common among those who worship personality over principle).

And then the cowardly dig at Rufai’s degree in Animal Anatomy (an old and tired insult recycled by those who cannot match intellect with intellect). Ukpe forgets that education is not a prison; it is a foundation. The same analytical precision used to dissect biological structures can dismantle bureaucratic hypocrisy. If Rufai studied how organs function, he is better equipped to diagnose the moral decay of governance — a kind of anatomy Nigeria desperately needs.

The metaphorical butcher’s table that Ukpe imagines is, in truth, a surgery for national sanity. Umahi’s evasions were not slaughtered by Rufai’s words; they were simply stripped of their camouflage. If that feels like vivisection, it is because truth, when laid bare, always bleeds arrogance.

What Ukpe calls “interrogation” is the soul of journalism itself (the art of holding power’s gaze without blinking). Rufai does not interview to massage egos; he interrogates to extract honesty. The spectacle that so offends Ukpe is the sight of power being forced, for once, to speak plainly. Umahi, unaccustomed to such unscripted candor, floundered; and the apologists rushed to cry “rude!”

No, sir. It is not rudeness when a citizen-journalist demands that a minister justify public policy. It is rudeness when a minister treats public office as private inheritance. It is rudeness when truth is strangled by the velvet glove of politeness.

The tragedy, then, is not Rufai’s interviewing style but the nation’s anemia of courage. Men like Ukpe prefer the journalism of curtsies and compliments: soft questions, softer spines. Rufai represents the return of the fourth estate as the conscience of democracy (loud, unbought, unafraid).

So, a word to Mr. Ukpe: before you craft your next epistle of bitterness, ensure that it isn’t envy masquerading as critique. Because when history names those who rekindled accountability in the age of sycophancy, your essay will be a smudge — but Rufai’s questions to David Umahi will remain a milestone in the resurrection of fearless journalism.
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Thomas Thomas, a Historian, writes from Tuskers Republic, Uyo.