WAKE UP: ‘O To Ge’ to national politics of shame – ENOUGH!
By BASHIR ADEFAKA
I have never hidden where I fall in the two divides that Nigerian politics has been enmeshed since politicking became laden with hate, fake news and deadly tendencies in 2014, 2015. I had always believed that to support anybody from any religion, tribe who Allah has made President of my country, Nigeria, is peak of patriotism hence my unflinching support for President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan particularly who hails from the tiniest of ethnic minority in the country where no one in a democracy would have been able to emerge.
In the newsroom of most Nigerian media organisations, we were also campaigned to from desk-to-desk to vote for Jonathan. Some has asked: Do you journalists too play politics? I replied: Playing politics is the constitutional right of every individual regardless of profession (with the exception of anyone in the security community and in the electoral umpire), tribe and religion. In the case of a journalist, he is the most rightly guided to dabble into anything along with his profession because the ethics of the profession provides him with natural guides, freedom and immunity doing so. As far as he keeps to the ethics which insists on truthfulness, fairness, accuracy or correctness and equity, he is good always.
For instance, Islam does not need a Muslim Journalist to get fair airing by media, likewise Christianity needs not Christian journalist to be fairly reported, although the opposite has been the case in Nigeria. Same tribe, same political parties. It was worse under PDP governments hence the many ethno-religious conflicts claiming a lot of lives. NTA has led the way to correcting this anomaly now under the Muhammadu Buhari Administration of All Progressives Congress (APC) and The NATION, The DEFENDER and TVC are following suit as they refuse resolutely to be in conflict with the State which is interpretation of media being at war with government of their country of practice, especially which does well. For a media organisation to use editorial page to tell huge lie that this government has done nothing in over three years in peak of rebellion.
In the Qur’an, Allah says in Suratul Bakara: “And mix not the truth with falsehood, nor conceal the truth” Q2:42. In another part of the Qur’an, Allah says if the hypocrites bring an information to you, probe it, ask questions, weigh issues surrounding the information and see the truth of the matter before you act. In another part of the Qur’an also Allah says say the truth even when it is against your own soul or your parents. This is journalism in Islam and whoever knows the position Allah places parents, which is next to him in the life of children, he will know the vitality of requirement of truthfulness as enjoined by him in his Holy Book, the Qur’an.
This is the matching order of Allah to journalists of the world. He does not ban journalists from playing politics but he has provided this set of professionals with the guidance as to how to handle and manage information received since everything about a journalist is his ability to gather or receive information (through interviews, press conferences or releases, events), process the information received (editing and producing) and then present it (publish) to the public for the actions of those in position of authority with intent that by acting on it, the society will change from bad to good and from good better.
It is therefore the reason I will allude to the comment of former Minister of Information and Culture of Nigeria, Prince Tony Momoh, who was also General Manager Publications of the defunct nation’s tabloid, the Daily Times of Nigeria Plc at a time Chief Segun Osoba was Managing Director under the Military Administration of Major General Muhammadu Buhari.
It was during the first year of President Buhari as civilian President that Prince Tony Momoh told me in his Jabi, Abuja residence that “Journalists are the only professionals with boundless opportunities to investigate even President, Governors and their deputies carrying immunity” and that when a society go bad, they should be held responsible and when the society is doing well they should be appreciated. The former Minister however was sad that Nigeria’s went deeply bad till the point President Buhari picked it up for rehabilitation because the journalists failed in their duty. This was where I began to play inclusive role in Nigerian politics at my level as a professional person.
Since I have become a young media proprietor, therefore, I have been able to make an impact exposing people responsible for the rots in our society even when it means that it cuts short my sources of business or personal economy. It is the reason I have refused to be gagged or be concerned with all the name tags that have been placed on me. I became a Buharist not by my own making but by the tag of people who feel that I was supporting a persecuted person, who – even before being elected as a primary election as presidential candidate of then newly formed merger party – was bombed and ruling class began to be jittery about.
But for how long are we going to continue to keep silence to evils when we know that our conspiracy of silence, which had been the bane of our national development in the past, will continue to destroy our living system?
I do know quite well that under 24 hours after former President Goodluck Jonathan handed over to President Muhammadu Buhari on 29 May 2015, people who are today running to United States, United Kingdom, European Union and the rest of the world even International Criminal Court at The Hague had started restrategising to come back and so they ensured that they started making Nigeria ungovernable for him with all sorts of anti-Nigeria elements including the Niger Delta Avengers, avenging for crimes uncommited against them other than a Fulani man defeated a Southerner in an election closely monitored by Nigerian masses themselves and the world.
They were running to those international organisations to seek support for their bid to unseat a doing well, globally acknowledged President Buhari so he would not continue to block the way of the self-centered hitherto few “owners of Nigeria” sabotaging the development of the country. So much that presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at this 2019 election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who presided over the sales of many national assets in the past including NITEL and Nigerian Airways without paying off their staff only for Buhari to be the one paying them off at this time, went to the extent of promising to open the crude oil base of Nigeria to them and also sell off the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as a matter of do-or-die to his foreign collaborators and use whatever is left of Nigeria wealth to enrich his friends.
This is the reason US President Donald Trump, a strictly businessman, particularly, is interested in Atiku’s presidential aspiration under the platform of PDP. This is a man and a party that US acknowledged as having plunged into huge corruption-inflicted backwardness. It will recalled Trump had called Nigeria a ‘shithole’ country and a former United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown described Nigeria as ‘fantastically corrupt’. It is therefore absurd and unthinkable that the same Trump because of personal gains from Atiku and his PDP’s corruption, anti-people and unpatriotic tendencies and promises would stool so low to support same people indicted for corruption in his country to take power back from the already getting-well administration of the progressives led by President Muhammadu Buhari in Nigeria.
It is a thing that we must condemn in totality. These opposition politicians have gone haywire so that they now feed fat on falsehood spreading fake news, preaching hate to divide the people among themselves, who they desperately seek to rule and even sponsoring bloodshed among certain ethnic communities and also religious disharmony all in attempt to discredit the man in power so as to gain the sympathy of both international community and people of the country but all have failed because the sincerity and performance of Buhari are not in doubt to even the worst of his enemies.
They are this desperate because they believe this is the best time to stop Buhari and that if not, they cannot do it again. Olusegun Obasanjo is the leading force coordinating them and they are all moving towards either permanent burial politically or complete extinction. Saturday 23 February 2019 is the new date to decide this. Nigerians should take their destiny in their own hands and say ‘O To Ge’ (Enough is Enough) to national politics of shame.
*WAKE UP is personal opinion column of Prince Bashir Adefaka, a Lagos based journalist and media proprietor.
