By Wale Adedayo
Democracy presupposes that the citizens have an informed choice among competing issues, personalities and political parties among others. Whether in a country, an organisation or village, the idea of using democratic means to arrive at decisions presupposes that the people are aware of virtually all information about the matter at hand.
In a democracy, the group or persons assigned this enormous task to inform the people and educate them are journalists. When journalists misbehave with their assignments, the repercussions often affect lives and institutions in such a way that nobody could ever imagine. There have been many manufactured stories about the Ogun State Governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel.
At a stage, during his first term, it was as if the media managers in the state had missed it completely. Why should a governor that even his opponents acknowledge as a performer have such a negative image? Why should a successful private businessman, who had always supported progressive groups as a private person suddenly become odious to such organizations in public life? Why should friends, who yesterday were full of praises for this son of a Pastor now feel Daniel has nothing to offer despite their acknowledgement of his achievements in office? Why???
The questions kept on coming until we went back to the drawing board and discovered that a carefully orchestrated formal and informal media war against OGD was being managed from outside the state. The interesting aspect of this contrived war was that most of the senior colleagues being used never for once asked probing questions from the man who suddenly seem to have more money and influence than he had ever dreamt of in his life.
Journalism, some would say, is a profession of skeptics. I'll not say so, directly. But the beauty of journalism is that we ask questions. Credible journalists do not just report a statement or interview when writing their stories. Context, which the layman describe as background, is weaved into the story in order to properly inform and educate the public, which may not otherwise have access to such information.
In reporting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's offer to assist the Nigerian military, which a comrade posted on the Net this morning, the journalists, who wrote the story for London's The Independent newspaper appropriately educated the British electorate on why fuel prices might continue to go up. The reason is simple, Brown should be held accountable by the electorate for whatever economic mishap that could result from the Prime Minister's offer to help Nigeria deal with its Niger Delta nightmare.
Contrast this with the recent frame up of the Chief of Staff to the Ogun State Governor, Dr. Yomi Majekodunmi, for attempting to kill the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Mr. Tunji Egbetokun. Most of the newspapers did not apply the time worn principles of journalism that has helped other countries to be where they are today. Prodded on by insidious propaganda from those fighting for a non-existent Yoruba Leadership; opportunists who want to deny the Yewa/Awori a chance to produce the next Governor in 2011; and expired leaders who still want our people to be involved in a rankadede situation, nobody asked questions about how a former Managing Director of a bank would be directly involved in an assassination bid.
What happened to us in the last few days is like what some Crime Correspondents often condone from the Police. For instance, hardly does anyone raises query when they read in our newspapers that the Police killed 10 armed robbers after a hot exchange of gunfire only to recover one locally made pistol. How could there have been hot exchange of gunfire when the locally made pistol recovered can only fire ONE cartridge at a time to the Police's rapid firing AK47?
Not one of such reports has ever contained where the bullets hit the so-called robbers to determine whether the alleged criminals were killed in cold blood or not. That is often left for Amnesty International and other like minded NGOs to sort out. In the interim, because of inaction from those who should report the stories, such illegalities continue and the populace continues to suffer. How would anyone whose loved one is killed in such circumstances react? We institute jungle justice in such people and expect God to hear our prayers when we go and offer tithe in the church?
Someone wrote that we denied the Governor was ill in April. What bunkum! That is part of the shenanigan going on. What has the manufactured report of a sponsored Correspondent based in Abeokuta, which he wrote at the time, got to do with the event of three weeks ago? In other climes, even those genuinely opposed to the Governor among the journalists would have gone to the Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Shagamu, where he was first attended to and used that to get to the London hospital, which treated him following advice to that effect from Shagamu. Till date, there has been no sign of that.
The Speaker who framed up our Chief of Staff sleeps in Abeokuta and go to Lagos to address press conferences. But each time the stories are written, journalists often claim he spoke with them in Mowe or Ibafo. The last press conference in Ogudu GRA after a meeting with one of the sponsors in Ikoyi was reported to have taken place in Mowe. Are we at war? About two days after our arrival from London, the rumour mill in Abeokuta was agog with stories that OGD bagged a death sentence from President Olusegun Obasanjo's superior juju after the Governor prostrated with onde (charm) for the Ota Chicken Farmer during a peace meeting brokered for both men by the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the South-West.
Interestingly enough, the rumour collapsed within 48 hours. We suspected that they were expecting us to expose the attempt on the Governor's life through poison. They were proactive enough to send negative propaganda into town to defuse whatever we were going to say. Unfortunately for them, we had already taken a decision before we left Croydon that the issue should be kept under wraps. But that President Umaru Yar'Adua should be briefed on it. Apart from OGD's immediate family and the few of us that joined him in London, no one was to know about the attempt on his life.
Our reason was simple: It might drive away some of the investors who are eyeing prime areas of the state for industrialisation. Chevron, Shell and a Chinese consortium are moving on the Olokola Free Trade Zone, which also includes a deep sea port. The Chinese have already moved to site with construction work going on at the Ogun-Guangdong Free Trade Zone site in Igbesa, Ado Odo/Ota Local Government. It was because we kept mute about the attept on the Governor's life that the Obasanjo angle did not survive that week.
The latest one, for which they've found suitable allies in some discredited journalists is that of magun. It is being claimed that the Governor was afflicted with magun after making love to somebody. This is cheap. This is sad. Gutter materials like these should not find their way into a forum for serious discussions. Elementary propaganda studies teach that we check information/messages appropriately before exposing our lack of knowledge. A similar story of sexual escapades was also written recently by another gutter weekly magazine in Lagos.
It was followed by another sponsored story by a live-in-lover of Chief Abiola Ogundokun in National Standard magazine. I feel the lady in question wants to get at me, not my boss, on behalf of her husband. But not to worry, God dey! Looking at the Obasanjo and magun stories using the prisms of my relationship with Otunba Gani Adams (Oodua!!!); my teenage years in Idioro, Mushin; and my high school days in Gaskiya College, Badia, how can any sane Yoruba man believe that when you dobale with onde to make somebody dead and the thing bounces back to you, that it is in the comfort of an Oyinbo hospital in London that the person would be healed? What arrant nonsense! Can't people use their heads anymore?
In the same vein, even if these jeunjeun journalists, who keep on debasing the profession, have not seen Tunde Kelani's masterpiece, Thunderbolt (Magun), before, why is it difficult for them to know that magun cannot be cured by any white man's medicine? In fact, magun is a fast mover against the life of the man if he had slept with the woman. If not, the woman would soon be on her way to the Creator! No Oyinbo medicine can stop its effect!!
If the above holds true in Yorubaland, where the ways of our fathers still hold sway among many, why should those who ordinarily ought to inform and educate the people now do the exact opposite, that is, misinform and destroy the ability to reason among our people? The reason is not far fecthed: pecuniary gains. Those who should be the sentinels of a new dawn in Nigeria have joined marauders to destroy the polity.
In the name of dollars and naira, our so-called journalists have turned the profession into a prostitution racket where anything goes. For us in Ogun State, our watchword remains the same; we will NEVER succumb to blackmail. We are resolute that things must change for the better in Nigeria, starting with our corner in Ogun State, Yorubaland, Yoruba in Diaspora and Nigeria.
- Wale Adedayo, a journalist, is the Chief Press Secretary to the Ogun State Governor.
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