Slowly but steadily, Nigeria has once again pitched its tent at the dark alley of lawlessness. I’m sure the incidents of the last few weeks are enough to give men of good conscience sufficient reasons to wonder if Abacha had indeed passed on or whether Nigerians are truly under a democratic regime. There are germane causes for Nigerians to be worried about the reckless way in which those in the corridors of power have unleashed terror on the very people they claim to be serving. It is even more painful to observe that the fascism being visited on the hapless nation is taking place under the watchful eyes of a self-confessed ‘servant-leader’ foisted on us by a grouchy ‘garrison commander’ who paid more attention to himself and his surrogates than national interest.
And, there is something about President Umaru Yar’Adua that should not be forgotten in a hurry. General Olusegun Obasanjo presented him as an angel from Heaven who could not hurt a fly. But, that has long been proved wrong in many ways. It is disheartening to note that although Yar’Adua comes off as an innocuous leader, overwhelmed by the nation’s daunting problems, the vicious elements bequeathed to him by his predecessors still hound and scorch the land like vipers. And, whether this uninspiring administration believes it or not, one of the legacies that would be ascribed to it, is that it had zero tolerance for criticism and free speech.
Or how do we explain the series of events resulting in the arrest and detention of journalists in the country and the closure Channels Television for simply carrying a story that Mr. President ‘might resign’. Thank God the station did not say that he had resigned. But even if it had said so and it turned out that the president had not resigned, all that would have been required of the station was a retraction and nothing more.
For the avoidance of doubt, the ethics of journalism demands that journalists who make mistakes-carrying or publishing inaccurate information, take immediate steps to correct it. That is it! Nothing more, nothing less. There is nothing like Nigerian journalism or European journalism ethics. Journalism thrives on the same or similar set of rules of engagement anywhere. But it would appear as if the Nigerian government wants to re-invent the rules of the game for their own selfish reasons. Sadly, those who might have counselled the government to shut Channels Television, arrest and detain its workers and those of the government-owned News Agency of Nigeria, could not have been journalists and God forbid, they should be. As it turned out, it is clear Yar’Adua’s counsellors know nothing about what constitutes a journalism breach. They, like their master have only found themselves in a place that has overwhelmed them. In a brazen display of their ignorance they have resorted to self deceit as a way of life and abuse of the rights of Nigerians with impunity just to be seen as rendering service to the nation under the guise of security. The result is that Nigerians have suffered all manner of injustice and repression in the hands of security personnel, be they under the military and civilian administrations. It was so bad that at one point in the run up to the 2003 election, sorry- selection, Obasanjo had to stoop from a political soap box and cane a security aide for brutalising people who had gathered to listen to his campaign manifesto.
It seems as if the resort by the security agents to military tactics to suppress the civilian populace at the least provocation while deviously professing the practice of the Rule of Law shows a country at the crossroads or a nation at war with itself. For all that, the Yar’Adua regime will take the flask and it will be very difficult for it to extricate itself from the abuses. The reason is simple. As someone who had only a year ago publicly drummed it to the consciousness of the world that he would rule Nigerians with empathy and strict adherence to the law, it makes a mockery of his vow for his regime to allow ‘mad dogs’ to spike the people with scorpion.
And, come to think of it, the whole episode that culminated in the phantom news of his resignation was triggered directly and indirectly by Yar’Adua and his lieutenants while Nigerians at the receiving end suffered what lawyers call ‘Double Jeopardy’ at the end. The way Yar’Adua went about the news of his disappearance from Nigeria for medical treatment or lesser hajj made nonsense of his avowed openness and transparency. Assuming that Yar’Adua had respect for the people he claims to be their servant, he would have been open enough to declare upfront that he was going to Saudi Arabia to treat himself and then pray to Allah for good health and wisdom to lead them. Of course, the Nigerian Constitution does not prescribe any sanctions for the country’s leader for performing any religious rite provided such does not affect the freedom of other Nigerians.
It is still puzzling why Yar’Adua has kept sealed lips over the contentious trip and what he actually did during the period of his absence. If the man does not know, I plead with those who are close to him to school him on the difference between being a potato and corn grower in one corner of the earth and being the president of a country with 140 million people with 70 percent eating most of the time from the refuse dump and 80 percent roaming the streets for nonexistent jobs.
Yet, in that same country, some people who call themselves ‘servants of the people’ share sacks of oil revenue every month and talk more on the pages of newspapers and do little or nothing for the benefit of the populace. In the interest of transparency and good governance, it is demanded of Yar’Adua that he summons courage and tell Nigerians where he went and why he left his office for over two weeks despite the hue and cry over the controversial trip. The worst case scenario was the way he sneaked into Nigeria, as the furore over the trip began to threaten his post.
One lesson that Yar’Adua or any Nigerian in leadership position should learn from this ignoble development is that anyone-whether foisted on Nigerians or duly elected as the late MKO Abiola was on June 12, 1993, should be ready to open up their health record and other details for public scrutiny. It would be ridiculous for any leader to mount the public gallery with a view to serving and earning both tangible and intangible benefits while still trying to demand full respect for privacy. The rule seems to be that privacy goes away with the acceptance of public service posts.
Those who do not want to put their private records at the disposal of the public they want to serve should at best keep off such positions and remain at the background.
I reckon with the words of two Jamaican reggae stars O. Riley and S. McKenzie that no man can steal both the fruits and roots of a tree. Yar’Adua and his henchmen can embellish the truth that Nigerians need from him for a short while but the bitter truth will certainly surface to their discomfort and shame. If he is sick and cannot run the government, there is nothing his overzealous security men can do to prevent it. If, it is true that the farmer is ‘hale and hearty’ as some of his sympathisers want us to believe, it will be difficult for even sorcerers in the Niger Delta Commission to enchant him with illness so as to drain his purse. Truth is constant as the morning star. In the United States for instance, both John McCain and Barack Obama have already placed their health records before their voters in the run up to the November election. President Yar’Adua does not need to hide his ailment from Nigerians if he wants to earn their sympathy, support and goodwill. It is natural for men to be afflicted by one ailment or the other as long as they are not God and will never be. It is not a crime to be sick. Right?
If Yar’Adua wants to remain a true servant-leader, let him phone the American Vice President, Dick Cheney for some counselling on how to share information with Nigerians about his life and governance. Reason: Cheney, who has been around in public sphere for sometime in both Halliburton and White House, has a guiding principle about how to share information for the good health of the nation.
He once wrote in a piece quoted by Hacker in 1996: “The best way for a nation to make political decisions about its future is to empower all of its citizens to process the political information relevant to their lives and express their conclusions in free speech designed to persuade others.”
Now, if Yar’Adua and his advisers believe that they can hoodwink Nigerians on what constitutes a snare to his life and get away with it, the outcome could only hurt them the more because information, like oxygen cannot be swept away even by the strongest army in the world.
Yar’Adua’s men may wish to refer to the famous speech, which President Ronald Reagan rendered in honour of Churchill in London in 1989, during which he confessed of the ubiquitous nature of information in nation building.
“More than armies, more than diplomacy, more than the best intentions of democratic nations, the communication revolution will be the greatest force for the advancement of human freedom the world has ever seen… the biggest of big brothers is increasingly helpless against communication technology.
Information is the oxygen of the modern age. The people of the world have increasing access to this knowledge. It seeps through the wall topped with barbed wire. It warps through the electrified booby-trapped borders.”
For those who think that hiding the scars on the president’s back would make him win a beauty contest, they should be reminded that what they consider as security information in Nigeria is of public to other nations. And, long as the Nigerian bigwigs relish in seeking medical attention outside the nation’s shores because the health institutions here don’t qualify as primary health centres even in some poorer African countries, their most guarded health secrets will always be scandalised and placed at public domain.
Journalists in Nigeria and elsewhere who be respected and stay out of trouble with the authorities must strive to always balance their act. They need to heed the advice of Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel who have cautioned in their short but effective Book: The Elements of Journalism, that journalists should promote journalism of verification above that of assertion.
Regardless of that, events of the past few months in Nigeria mainly served as a distraction from the main headache facing Nigerians. While the health of Mr. President stirred up a needless hullabaloo, the noise over his intending resignation threw the nation into a state of confusion as to where the country is heading. In the heat of that uncertainty, ‘Nigeria’s enemies within’ struck with renewed vigour and rattled the oil markets once more.
The latest attacks and destruction of oil facilities in Nigeria and other atrocities, which the militants have wreaked on the nation without a corresponding response from the security agencies, raise a crucial question. Why has it been impossible for the Nigerian security establishment to pinpoint where the attackers are coming from and who their backers are with a view to arresting and detaining them, as was the recent case with journalists? Daily, the militants continue to assault the sensibilities of the Nigerian government and its leaders on the web and such are relayed sometimes live by the international media without any response from the security agencies. Could it be that the secret agents who ‘discovered a plot by some persons to malign the first family by using journalists’, are creek phobic or do not have enough expertise to investigate what goes on in the mangroves?
Nigerians would welcome the extension of the wizardry of the Nigerian security to the creeks. And that is where they should focus their skills and stop raising alarms where none is in the offing. Obviously, if the State Security Service (SSS) has been as quick in unearthing the underhand deals that go on in the oil industry and Nigeria as a country as well as the felons causing mayhem in the oil-bearing communities as it did in the arrest of journalists last week, Nigerians would have been the better for it.
But my fear however is that the so-called investigation of people trying to cause disaffection in the country will end up as a ruse or at best justification for arresting the media workers. Such puerile tactics are not new in this country and in countries where the respect for human rights is very low.
In the days of Abacha, we witnessed how ‘bombs’ allegedly planted by the opposition exploded at airports the leader was intended to pass through just for NADECO chieftains to be clamped into the gulag so that the short man would reign in perpetuity. Till date, the outcome of the security investigation has not been made public and no one set to jail.
The primary purpose of the incessant arrest of journalists and closure of media houses is, as nothing but an old fashioned fascism mode of intimidation to shut out the media from prying into the mess that goes on in public places in Nigeria. Such devious strategy is often deployed by non-performing leaders especially in Africa, to distract the people from the daunting dilemmas facing them and portray the security agents as dynamic and patriotic.
But it should be the priority of all that Nigeria is never again counted among pariah states because of its penchant to knock the media once they goof. The court should be the first place to resort to in determining what went wrong and what sanctions to apply and not secret agents and bullies in the largest party in Africa.
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