By Steve Osuji

A MOST DUBIOUS HONOUR: I am scandalized! Any serious journalist in Nigeria today ought to be miffed by this shocking immortalization of a certain Ismaila Funtua, now deceased.

I find it difficult to believe that the leadership of Nigeria’s media elected to name its flagship property after this fellow.

I am full of doubts and scepticism that media leaders in Nigeria sat and reach a consensus to hoist Funtua on our rooftop as the poster boy of Nigeria’s media.

To be sure, could the leaders of the Nigerian Press Organisation (NPO) which comprises the Newspapers’ Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), and the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) agree on this?
If actually they did, it amounts to nothing short of a harakiri, self-immolation of the media establishment in Nigeria. It is a shame indeed.

I am much distraught that I have to call out my former publisher and friend, Mr Nduka Obaigbena in this matter but being the head of NPAN which serves as a sort of honorary head of our industry today, he will be required to make further explanations and proffer more justification why Ismaila Funtua deserves such an honour in the midst of Nigeria’s rich pantheon of journalism legends.
If we had even one, yes, ONE good reason why this man has been so robed, one would be able to rest easy but here are the reason we have been handed:
“For his untiring contributions to the development of journalism and freedom of press in Nigeria and around the world…”

Other reasons include:

• the co-founding of Democrat Newspapers;
• presidency of the NPAN at a time of national crises;
• life patron of NPAN;
• serving on the board of the International Press Institute;
• serving as chairman of board of the Nigerian Institute of journalism.

Now how do all these add up to greatness in media and journalism in Nigeria? How have all these impacted positively on our trade?

Co-founding a newspaper which is not defunct? In fact The Democrat was dead on arrival, making little impact and leaving hardly any imprint on the Nigerian media scene.

And at that, I can count a thousand defunct newspapers and magazines some of which are sorely missed even long after they were rested.

How then could co-founding a paper be big deal? All other so-called achievements tagged to late Funtua are mere honorifics many of which were opportunistic conferments.

A FIELD OF GIANTS: Meanwhile, Nigeria’s media has such a rich history that one is pained to see standards being laid with mediocrity and opportunism.
In an industry peopled by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Lateef Jakande, Babatunde Jose, Segun Osoba, Olu Aboderin, Sam Amuka Pemu, Adamu Ciroma, Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese, Chris Okolie, Felix Ibru, Raymond Dokpesi, Nduka Obaigbena, Stanley Macebuh, Wada Maida, Lade Bonuola, Kabiru Yusuf, John Momoh, Tony Momoh, Chris Anyanwu, Ajibola Ogunshola, Lanre Idowu, Frank Aigbogun, Bilkisu Yusuf, MKO Abiola, Orji Uzo Kalu, to name only a few of very numerous illustrious men and women who have impacted our media world and profession in a deep-reaching way.
Where, for instance, would you fit Funtua on this list? A shortlist at that.

How many journalists and media men did he employ sustainably and for how long?

In all his activities in the industry, how many professionals did he mentor? How did he improve the lot of various media businesses or speak on our behalf especially as a close associate of the current government?

I don’t remember any seminal contribution or proposition at any fora for the edification of journalism by Funtua. On what basis, therefore, is this honour?

THE WATCHDOG IS DEAD AND BURIED: One is of the opinion that most of us have long forgotten the import and magnitude of this noble profession. We are now bereft of professional rectitude required of our business; we are on a rollercoaster, it’s now a situation of just anything goes.

It of course explains why JUST ANYTHING ALSO GOES IN OUR DEAR COUNTRY.
Corruption, fraud and scandalous behaviours break out in public offices all around us every day. Governance in Nigeria has become an endless string of scandals and misdemeanors.

This is because our MEDIA AND JOURNALISM HAVE FAILED! The WATCHDOG didn’t only die, something worse happened to it, it became a lap dog – it became part of the problem!

It makes excuses for inept and poor leadership, it covers malfeasance, it colludes with officialdom and it honours rogue officials.

BEATIFICATION OF A VILLAIN: Even if we forgive Funtua’s puny achievements in the media, how can we forgive or feign ignorance of his seeming ignoble roles in governance in Nigeria in the last five years?

It is common knowledge that the late Funtua was a close associate of President Muhammadu Buhari. It is common knowledge that in cahoots with Mamman Daura and a couple of others they represent the kitchen cabinet (read CABAL) of this presidency.

It is common knowledge that this small group may be held responsible for our country’s unyielding slide into a monumental debacle.
Of course, this column is also not ignorant of common stories of alleged unbridled brigandage tagged on this circle, it only chooses to be silent about them.
If these be common knowledge how’s it that our media leadership made up of NPAN, NGE AND NUJ would now seem to collude to uphold and venerate what seems like utter villainy?

Is Nigeria media today some form of Boko Haram in another guise? But even that terror group may get a fairer hearing in the public tribunal for they make not pretences to be pro-society; besides they tend to destroy the physical body.
But our media leadership would be destroying our body, soul and spirit by the time they are done.

SEARING OUR PSYCHE: The renaming of the NIJ HOUSE to Ismaila Funtua House is a sear not only on the very heart and soul of media and journalism in Nigeria, it portends a permanent damage to the psyche of our nation.

UNLESS THIS DECISION IS RESCINDED…
I hold as follows:

• I shall renounce my membership of the NGE and NUJ,
• I shall boycott the NIJ HOUSE,
• I shall seek every opportunity to campaign against this travesty and canvass that all journalists of goodwill should do the same.

▪︎Steve Osuji, Friday, July 24, 2020

By Mahmud Jega

Every now and then, an important item in the news tends to remind me of somethinvg. When Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said last Tuesday that this country should try new tactics in the fight against corruption, he reminded me of Nasiru Imam, Deputy Managing Editor of Daily Trust and long-time secretary of its Editorial Board.

Some years ago, the editorial board was discussing the problem of teachers’ salaries, which were in arrears in many states. One member said the system of paying teachers through State Basic Education Commissions [SBECs] is failing. Another member however said funds for paying teachers’ salaries were once paid directly to local governments. The system was ended because many LGAs diverted them. Yet another member pointed out that in the 1980s-early 1990s, Babangida regime centralized the payment of teachers’ salaries in the National Primary Education Commission [NPEC] but that arrangement also ran into problems. Nasiru Imam dropped his pen, sighed and said, “Every method has been tried. Nothing worked.”

Osinbajo spoke at an Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission [ICPC] regional webinar on “Combatting Corruption and Illicit Financial Flows: New Measures and Strategies.” He said we must democratize the fight against corruption and protect whistle blowers. Very good. He is looking for another method to fight corruption. In the last 60 years in Nigeria, which tactic have we not tried in fighting corruption?

We have overthrown governments because of corruption. Those who overthrew the First Republic in January 1966; those who overthrew the Gowon regime in 1975; those who killed General Murtala Mohammed in 1976; those who overthrew the Second Republic in 1983 as well as those who voted out the Jonathan Administration in 2015 all alleged that it was due to corruption. We later realized that Sardauna, Balewa, Gowon, Murtala and Shagari had no money.

We tried affidavits. In 1974, Godwin Daboh filed an affidavit against Federal Commissioner for Communications Joseph Tarka while Aper Aku filed another affidavit in court against Benue Plateau State Military Governor, Police Commissioner Joseph Gomwalk, both alleging corruption. We tried a purge. In 1975-76 Murtala purged thousands of public servants in all sectors. He used the harshest words and the sternest language including summary dismissal, dead woods, with ignominy, with immediate effect, betrayed the ethics of their professions, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

We tried Public Complaints Commission, which Murtala formed in 1976 with the hyper-active Yusuf Maitama Sule as its first Federal Commissioner. When that did not work, we tried exhortation. In 1977 Head of State General Obasanjo went to Jaji and made the Jaji Declaration, that Nigeria must create a society that is fair, just, humane and African. It failed.

In 1981 President Shehu Shagari tried an Ethical Revolution. It hardly got off the ground so in 1983, he created an Egypt-style Ministry of National Guidance with Yusuf Maitama Sule as the minister. It made no impact either, so in 1984-85 we tried a War Against Indiscipline, WAI. Buhari/Idiagbon regime launched it in five brutal phases, complete with a WAI Brigade that became notorious for its excesses.

General Buhari also signed the Recovery of Public Property [Special Military Tribunals] Decree no 3 of 1984. The Special Military Investigation Panels turned the doctrine of justice on its head. They said based on a former public office holder’s declaration of assets, he was presumed guilty until he could prove his innocence. Though who couldn’t do so were turned over to Special Military Tribunals, which jailed dozens of former governors, ministers and other top officials, some for up to 300 years. Many governors were jailed for donating public funds to their political parties.

We tried court cases. Gani Fawehinmi filed an innumerable number of suits to challenge every suspected corrupt act by the Babangida regime, including Mrs. Babangida’s pet Better Life for Rural Women. We tried Failed Banks Tribunals. General Sani Abacha created them with much fanfare. They jailed many bankers and bank debtors, even though Abacha himself nearly bankrupted the Central Bank.

Under General Abdulsalami Abubakar, we began efforts to retrieve looted assets. Recovering the Abacha loot has been on for 22 years now. In 1999, President Obasanjo promised in his inaugural address to fight corruption. Five years later he created EFCC and ICPC. Later, EFCC created NFIU, which is now an independent body. We even tried an Anti-corruption Advisory, which EFCC issued just before the 2007 elections.

We tried a Freedom of Information Act but unlike in America, government agencies here routinely ignore FOI requests. Obasanjo also did a Servicom, with units in every ministry and agency but that did not dent corruption. A lot of human rights and anti-corruption NGOs also sprang up in Nigeria, mostly populated by left-wingers who were left ideologically stranded by the East Bloc’s collapse in 1989.

We tried Code of Conduct Bureau for public officers but since their assets declaration is kept secret, the Code of Conduct Tribunal that tries violators has very little work to do. We tried parliamentary Public Accounts Committees. They were very powerful in the First Republic but these days they have no audit reports to work on, since most government agencies never audit their accounts. We tried preaching; Muslim imams and Christian pastors have shouted themselves hoarse from the pulpits against corruption, to no avail. Sometimes they practice if you cant beat them, join them.

Newspaper editors, reporters and columnists also did what they can in the war against corruption. Nearly every day in the last 50 years, exposes of corrupt deeds were the lead stories in many Nigerian newspapers. No one can count the feature articles, opinion columns and editorials written against corruption. In recent years the social media joined in the fight, not always appropriately.

Nigeria Police too did its best, arrested and charged to court thousands of people for acts of corruption, even if they were less than one-tenth of the culprits. Ditto for the courts; they have jailed thousands of people for corruption in the last 60 years, after ponderous trials and appeals, but let many thieves off the hook. In 2007 President Umaru Yar’adua tried adherence to rule of law as an anti-corruption strategy. That did not work either. President Jonathan’s biggest contribution to the anti-corruption war was to make a distinction between ordinary stealing and corruption, which he later said he heard from the Chief Justice.

We tried whistleblowing but the blowers were left unpaid. In the last 10 years, we deployed technological tools including BVN, TSA and EFCC’s Eagleclaw against corruption. They made a dent, but not all that much. President Buhari’s anti-corruption campaign, launched in 2015, at first held the highest promise but it had no blueprint and totally relied on EFCC. It recently came crashing down in flames.

Even the force of personal example did not help. You can’t have a simpler national leader than Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. That iconic 1965 photo of him, on leave in Bauchi, taken by a white journalist, sitting on a local mat, his two children around him, eating sugar cane, no sign of security guards or limos, no mansion behind him, no exquisite furniture, no Persian rugs, no contract files in sight and no fawning aides nearby. Yet he was killed by totally misguided soldiers for alleged corruption.

Sardauna Ahmadu Bello, after being overwhelming Premier of the North for 12 years, governing 20 of today’s 37 states including FCT, had only one personal car, a Pontiac, when he was killed in the January 1966 coup. When I interviewed his personal driver Nuhu Direba in Sokoto in January 1991, he told me that two days after the coup, he evacuated Sardauna’s family to Sokoto in that lone car. It was too small to accommodate their bags so Sardauna’s Principal Private Secretary Hassan Lemu went and borrowed another car. The family left for Sokoto in that two-vehicle convoy.

Sardauna had no house in Kaduna that his family could repair to. Even though under his rule, Ministry of Lands carved out hundreds of GRA plots and allocated them to senior civil servants and merchants, Sardauna got none. In Sokoto too, he had only one modest house even though before he became Premier in 1954, he was the Northern Region Minister of Works, Community Development and Local Governments, in charge of all Emirs, Chiefs and Native Authorities. Before that, he was Councillor in charge of Sokoto NA’s Central Office, i.e. SSG of today’s Sokoto and Zamfara states combined. Which personal example again is anyone talking about?

I wish Prof Osinbajo luck in his search for a new tactic. I can’t think of any that has not been tried already.

By

Sonnie Ekwowusi

As I was saying here a few weeks ago, the ignominious bankruptcy plaguing Nigeria at the moment, of course, aside from political, social, cultural, intellectual, ideological and moral bankruptcies, is the loss of sense of public shame. When a people are no longer ashamed to steal government money, or rig election or indulge in official corruption or sexual immorality openly, it is an indication of the deterioration of those cherished values which ought to form the superstructures for the building of their national ethos. A few years ago, for instance, some male students of Ireti Grammar School, South-West Ikoyi, Lagos, shamelessly went and gang-raped some girls of Falomo Senior High School, Ikoyi, Lagos in broad daylight. The Ireti boys had earlier forcefully used scissors to rip off the skirts of the Falomo Senior High School girls before commencing their gang-rape. What shocked Mathew (the person who witnessed the gang-rape) was that the incident took place in a broad day light before a motley crowd of onlookers. As the gang rape was going on, some students of Ireti Grammar School, Falomo Senior High School and passers-by who had gathered round the rapists and their girl victims did not deem it fit to rescue the girl victims. Instead they were cheering the rapists to victory to the astonishment of Mathew. The Lagos State government was so angry at that time that it vowed to deal with the erring students of Ireti Grammar School. I don’t know what has transpired since that time. Anyway, the Ikoyi rape incident shows the loss of sense of public shame.

Another illustration of the loss of sense of public shame is the Big Brother Nigeria (BBNaija) that is now showing. BBNaija is a TV reality show in which a group of shameless young men and women who look like baboons engage themselves in sexual orgy and erotic debauchery before TV watchers. In case you are in doubt, the sexual orgies of the inmates of BBNaija 2018 are available online for you to see. The most notorious of the BBNaija sexy inmates is Miss Abiri Oluwabusayo Khloe (simply called Khloe). She has proved to be the most shameless of the inmates displaying her nakedness in front of the TV camera. Are the parents of this girl not worried that their lovely daughter is posing naked in front of the TV camera? Are other parents not worried that the eyes of their children are glued to the TV watching the sexual perversities in BBNaija? What is wrong with us in Nigeria? Must we lose everything before it dawns on us that we are dying as a people? If the Buhari government cannot find solution to the Fulani herdsmen killings, what is stopping Nigerian parents from safeguarding the morality of their children? In the past, the House of Representatives punished Multi-Choice for airing of the Big brother barbarism. A year was when the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) imposed a N10 million fine on Multi-choice Nigeria for airing Big brother barbarism. In the past, Multi-choice apologized to Nigerians for airing Big brother barbarism. A year was when some staffers of MNET were fired in connection with Big brother House of whores. A year was when Maureen, Bertha, Ofuneka and other female members of the Big brother barbarism apologized to the public and their respective families for misbehaving in front of the TV camera. In fact, Bertha regretted that lesbianism was practised among some female members of the Big brother barbarism.

But unfortunately Big brother barbarism is once on the screen. Most people do not know that the airing of BBNaija fragrantly violates the Child Right’s Act, 1999 Constitution, Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) 1989 signed and ratified by Nigeria, The African Charter on Human and People’s Rights signed and ratified by Nigeria; the Nigerian broadcasting Commission (NBC) Code. The rights guaranteed in sections 37 (right to private life), 38 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion), 39 (right to freedom of expression and the press) 40 (right to peaceful assembly) 41 (right to movement) of the 1999 Constitution are curtailed by section 45 (1) of the same Constitution to the effect that “Nothing in sections 37, 38, 39, 40, and 41 shall invalidate any law that is reasonably justifiable in a democratic society: (a) in the interest of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or public health; or (b) for the purpose of protecting the rights and freedom of other persons”. One of those laws that are reasonably justifiable in a democratic society is the NBC Code. Section 4.3.0 of the NBC Code states that “Any programme which violates social values, shows disrespect for law and order, or departs from an honourable lifestyle is forbidden. Section 3.7.1 of the NBC Code states that “obscene, pornographic or vulgar language, expression, presentations and representations are prohibited”. Section 3.9.1 of the NBC Code also stipulates that “Womanhood shall be presented with respect”. Article 18 of the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights stipulates that “the family shall be the natural unit and basis of society. It shall be protected by the State which shall take care of its physical health and morals”.

Therefore the airing of BBNaija is a corruption of public morality and therefore unconstitutional and illegal. The 1999 Constitution is rooted in our national ethos which in turn is deeply ingrained in public morality. By simple definition, public morality is the preservation of a social environment conducive to ethics and inhospitable to vices. Preservation of public morality is so essential that in the popular case of SOBAYO V DAILY TIMES(1977) 40 OYSHC page 1, Justice Emmanuel Fakayode said: “If a newspaper publishes news about any person breaching any of the moral standards of society, such newspaper is discharging a moral duty, which the public in general has a reciprocal interests to receive; it is such publication that helps as social sanction to keep the society’s moral welfare where the law is deficient”

Consequently, the House of Representatives should wield the sledgehammer against Multi-Choice as it did in the past. The NBC should wake up and perform its public functions. The argument of the NBC that it cannot clamp down on DsTV because BBNaija is “privately subscribed” is legally indefensible. Is NBC saying that DsTV is above the law or what? But the law setting up the NBC enjoins it to promote Nigerian societal values through broadcasting. Is the NBC saying that any program that is “privately subscribed” even if it is a program that promotes terrorism in Nigeria is justified? So, what is the NBC talking about? If the NBC cannot get DsTV and Multi-choice to stop corrupting public morality in Nigeria then it means that the NBC is simply incompetent and irresponsible.