Theophilus Abbah
21 September 2008
With her school-girl haircut, medium height and almost feeble voice, Mrs Remi Oyo does not fit the figure of a woman who could manoeuvre her way through a cross-fire in a battle.
Many still wonder how she survived as spokesperson to former President Olusegun Obasanjo for about four years in spite of all the intrigues in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and in The Presidency. In the last seven months, it seems, she has faced hair-raising controversies over information management. First, was in February this year. Another was last week.
In the case of the incident in February, Mrs Oyo ran into trouble over a comment she was said to have made during a staff meeting. At the forum, she was said to have instructed the staff members of the New Agency of Nigeria (NAN), where she is, at present, Managing Director, on the need to improve on their work ethics, and of course, on how to conduct themselves under the dispensation in which she would oversee. In a very absurd and embarrassing manner, a story leaped out of the huge, imposing NAN building in the Central Business District of the Federal Capital Territory, into the page of a newspaper in the South-West. And what was the content of the 'news?' The story quoted Mrs Oyo as saying that President Umaru Musa Yar'adua was going to abandon the mandate given to him in April last year because, the Court of Appeal, which was hearing the presidential election petition, was apparently going to upturn Yar'adua's victory at the polls. Mrs Oyo denied ever making such a statement at any forum.
To many, such a story was credible because Mrs Oyo, a former close aide of Obasanjo, should have access to such privileged information. Afterall, there was the rumour that Yar'adua had fallen out with his benefactor, and that Obasanjo was going to exploit every opportunity to undo the favour he did Yar'adua by 'lifting him up by hand.' Those who envied or, in the extreme, hated Mrs Oyo for having the best of the two administrations - Senior Special Assistant to Obasanjo and now Managing Director of a frontline news agency - had thought that the woman's blunder had driven her to the end of the road. It was, therefore, shocking to them that the cup of sack passed over Mrs Oyo, with every indication that she could complete her tenure as NAN boss.
The incident of last week was not directly linked to Mrs Oyo, but she came under fire because of the fact that the institution she heads was accused of peddling another rumour which is also linked to Yar'adua's exit from the exalted throne. A news flash that Yar'adua would resign his position after reshuffling his cabinet, was alleged to have been found on NAN's e-mail account to media houses in Nigeria. Though NAN's management denied it, the question that begged for answer is, 'how come the impersonators of NAN have the e-mail addresses of all the media houses in Nigeria?' The only news agency with such resources in Nigeria is NAN because all the media organisations in the country source some news stories and features from NAN.
This reporter gathered that Mrs Oyo was actually away to China when the mess was made. On the trip with her were the Editor-in-Chief and the Director (Technical) of NAN, and their mission to the Asian country was to explore the possibility of partnering with Xinhua, the Chinese News Agency, on exchange programmes that would give NAN staff better management and technical training services. The arrangement was supposed to be a preamble to the launch of NAN into the World Wide Web, the way other renowned news agencies in the world, like Reuters International, the French Agence France Presse (AFP), and the British Associated Press (AP) operate. It was not clear if they had started discussions with the Chinese before they rushed back to Abuja to quench the fire that had been set on the integrity of their organisation by the enemies of Yar'adua - or is it the enemies of NAN?
To a great extent, experts in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) blame the agency for what has happened, and for the embarrassment it has brought upon Nigeria and the media industry in general. In the 21st Century and in spite of the massive advancement in ICT, the News Agency of Nigeria has no functional website, and it relays stories to its subscribers through the services of the open "yahoo mail" and "goggle mail" accounts. To underscore how backward NAN is, one may need to look at the progress that the Pan African News Agency (PANA) has made. PANA was initially an appendage of NAN, and at a point it was almost dead. But a few years ago, its headquarters was moved to Dakar, Senegal, and it was revived - miraculously. Today, PANA has a functional website, such that those who subscribe to its stories could just log on to its website. The advantage of this is that, it is not easy for a common internet hacker to break into PANA's website to plant any story, even if it were a one-line statement, like the one on the purported Yar'adua resignation. But with an e-mail service, anyone could open a similar e-mail account and post any information.
The news agency was set up with the objective of making NAN the leading news agency of authoritative and reliable stories in Africa and about Africa. But for almost a decade now, there has not been any significant improvement at NAN. The imposing NAN building that is like the glory of the news agency's headquarters was built during the dispensation of Alhaji Wada Maida, who quit his position as Managing Director in 2002. It is a five-storey building with a basement. Apart from the structure, not much value has been added to the quality of services rendered by NAN, and the usual complaint is the lack of funds.
In the last few years, the agency's management has been gathering momentum to raise its information transmission technique from the e-mailing system to a website, but it has not come to reality because of the shortage of funds. It is not clear if the budgetary allocations to NAN are never released, but some staff members spoke in hushed tunes about the flashy lifestyles of the management staff, which is at variance with the poor standard of the operations of NAN. The excuse being given is that it takes a huge sum of money to build a website, purchase the vital softwares and pay the fees of internet website hosts in Paris, London or in the United States charge. But if it is so expensive to do these, how come PANA, which began operations with a technical support from NAN, now has a functional website hosted by an organisation in Paris?
From the evidence at NAN, many staff members give kudos to Mrs Oyo for the commitment she has shown in raising the IT level at the organisation. At least, most reporters with NAN have laptops, and she has ensured that two foreign offices in South Africa and United States are re-opened. At present, apart from these two countries, NAN does not have correspondents in any other part of the world. For foreign news transmission to its subscribers, NAN depends on Reuters, Associated Press (AP) or AFP. In spite of her efforts, staff members complain of heavy workload with little motivation. Though they face the hazard of journalism like reporters who work in private media organisations, NAN reporters are put under the civil service salary scale. They have made appeals to government to be put on a separate salary scale, but not much seems to have been done along this line. Therefore, NAN staff members are ready to jump ship at every opportunity they run into.
Must the news agency be owned by government? Absolutely not! Reuters is not owned by the British government, but it is making profit. Insiders blame the situation at NAN on politics. Appointments to the headship of NAN are political. Promotions are political. It is not surprising, therefore, that NAN is enmeshed in the country's political blunders.
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