Leadership (Abuja)
Ibrahim Modibbo
18 November 2008
opinion
As days of the locusts continue unabated these times are tough and could be summed up as a trying period for the President Umaru Yar'Adua administration in Nigeria. Under legitimacy burden arising from the worst general elections in any democracy; coupled with lack of vision and programme of action to move the country forward, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has now directed both necessary and unnecessary energy, time and scarce to combating the Nigerian press. No where in the world has the triumph of might over right ever succeeded; Yar'Adua's current game-plan invasion of the media and arrest of its editors with a view to disintegrating their collective will and values can only endanger our democracy and further plunge it into a bottomless pit of infamy.
Once the opposition is stifled and press freedom is lacking, democracy will be as good as the paper on which it is written. Not even under the brazen administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo has the press been thus gagged. The Nigerian media is now on trial, as the government of Yar'Adua is becoming intolerant by the day, which informs the current level of despair and despondency, helplessness and hopelessness with ravaging poverty as the hallmark of an administration that woefully failed our democratic enterprise.
It is a pity, we are in a society where sycophancy has become endemic and those vested with the responsibility of handling Mr. President's media strategy bespeak a team that lacks the courage and conviction to tell him that war with the press is like dining with the devil with a very short, plastic spoon. The Nigerian press is not like the proverbial fly that can be crushed with a sledge hammer, and whoever tells the presidency that it can win a lethal war as this, against the media, is not sincere but at best deceptive and economical with the truth in a democracy. This therefore rekindles the question; Can Yar'Adua win the media war? George Santayana, a famous historian and great philosopher of all times once said "if experience is not retained, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it; for time past, and time present are both contained in time future."
After almost two years of just thinking without any action for solid achievement in all spheres of human endeavour, the Yar'Adua administration should go back to the drawing board for self-examination, as it is now evident that the government is at the cross-roads, without any blue print or programme of action that could turn round the fortunes of Nigerians. The president should think of putting food on the tables of the masses, improve electricity, provide water, modern transportation, and healthcare as well as improve the general wellbeing of the nation's economy, with a view to changing the face and character of governance instead of dissipating too much energy in either closing media houses, arresting editors or gagging the free flow of information. Just like the days of the military, it had to take special appeal and personal interventions of some good spirited Nigerians for the media to be reopened.
In the last two weeks or so, "Focus Nigeria" a very popular current affairs programme aired at primetime of the African Independent Television, AIT, was barred by the Yar'Adua government for interviewing the former President Ibrahim Babangida. The programme which has been off air since then, upto the present moment of writing this column has shown the level of intolerance of criticism by this government. According to sources, "Focus Nigeria" has to be barred from the Tv sets of Nigerians as what Babangida said in that interview was capable of inciting the public. With the past few months, Yar'Adua has become consistently intolerant that he fell apart with media houses. On the average, every month or two, the government is either closing down a media house, barring a programme or arresting its editors and this is not healthy in our nascent democracy.
It would be recalled that just recently, the government ordered the closure of Channels Television for reporting on Yar'Adua's purported resignation which came via the government owned wire services of the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN. All media houses treat NAN stories as factual but that particular story which found itself through yet-to be determined source into the NAN bulletin and later found to be untrue, made the government to close down the media house for days and arrested both editors of the television house and the management of NAN. That as a pre-condition for the reopening of the programme, all its presenters who are considered as radicals by the powers that be, must be removed. If this threat is successfully carried through, glamourous presenters like Mark Amarere and Gbenga Aruleba may be off the tube for some time.
It could be recall that just recently, the government ordered for the arrest and detention of Jonathan Elendu and Emmanuel Asiwe, two on line journalists for an offence that is yet unknown. Elendu, the popular editor of on-line publication Elendureport.dot.com was arrested and detained for twelve days and when he was finally released by the State Security Service SSS, his two handsets were collected.
Just last week again, the Yar'Adua government was in the news for a very wrong reason. After an error in editorial judgement which the management of the LEADERSHIP newspaper has accepted and apologised to President Yar'Adua on his reported illness, the police and the State Security Service have for the nth time arrested and serially interrogated the chairman of LEADERSHIP group, Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah, editor daily, Abdulrazaqe Bello Barkindo and editor Weekend Lara Olugbemi. The consistent harassment and intimidation of the editor-in-chief and the editors of the paper is a source of concern to journalism profession and all men of goodwill. This signals the return of democratic dictatorship as press freedom is now becoming a scarce commodity under the Yar'Adua administration. Democracy is all about rule of law and civility in all spheres of human endeavour and now that the Yar'Adua govt professes rule of law and absolute safeguard of human rights, we expect the government to take any media organ or its management to court if any story infringes on its right.
The government should see the media as a partner in the development of our collective enterprise rather than this dangerous drum beat of war whose consequencies is better imagined than experienced. Yar'Adua is under pressure to perform and this is the time he needs more friends than enemies. Mr. President Sir, no one rides a tiger and gets scot free, even if the tiger is lame duck or sick on its death bed. Let the media be.
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