Ambassadorial Appointment to Silent Vocal Voices

By Kparobo Ehvwubare

They call it honour
A national flag folded into prestige,
A posting wrapped in protocol,
A smile for the cameras.
But behind the velvet curtains,
A quieter truth tiptoes:
Appointments can be instruments,
Soft weapons to silence
Voices that once echoed too loudly.

When the drums of criticism beat too hard,
Power often chooses a gentler tune:
Ship the drums abroad.
Let the rhythms fade.
Thus came the list—
Names like FFK, Reno—
Men once vibrant on the national stage,
Bold with commentaries, fierce with words.
Suddenly softened with diplomatic calls
To lands far from the country’s heat.

And Reno himself,
In a rare confession wrapped in metaphor, said:
“Humans must be flexible,
Not standing like a tree.”
A line subtle as smoke—
A quiet admission that sometimes
The wind that bends a man
Is not wisdom,
But the weight of convenience.

Yet this script is aged.
Delta State remembers its earlier chapter:
When Chief James Ibori,
In a calculated stroke of politics,
Recommended Late Amb. S.A.D Inije
Of Boboruku–Ijerhe Kingdom
For foreign service.
Not merely to honour him,
But to shift his gaze,
To ease the pressure,
To mute a voice that watched too closely
The inner workings of governance.

Thus the pattern lives on:
A nation mastering the art
Of honour as exile,
Of distance as silencing,
Of turning vocal lions
Into quiet diplomats
By simply changing their coordinates.

But voices are not chains—
They do not break in foreign lands.
And though power may scatter its critics
Across oceans like drifting seeds,
Seeds do not die in distant soil—
They grow,
They return,
They speak again.

And someday,
Even the voices silenced today
Will rise with echoes twice as strong—
For truth can travel farther
Than any ambassador’s plane.

Kparobo Ehvwubare is a social analyst, good governance advocate and rights activist. Could be reached on 07067546856.