By Evans Ufeli Esq
The video footage of Mr. Femi Fani Kayodes outburst after a journalist inquired to know his sponsors of his recent tour of states’ projects across Nigeria has garnered remarkable commentaries on the propriety or otherwise of the question asked by the journalist and the attendant reactions of FFK at a press conference held in Calabar. Whilst there were broad commentaries condemning the assault of a journalist by a former minister whom people believed should know better, there lies little or no concrete information on the root causes of such outburst howbeit uncivilized.
Part of the problems to this shenanigans is that Nigeria maintains an inequitable socio-economic and disequilibrium society with unfair labour practice which instigates professionals to rally around politicians for survival/livelihood
The journalists, policemen, teachers and the host of other professionals work in a system that constantly keeps them at the verge of survival, toiling in a very harsh labour regime that undermines their careers, thereby truncating their aspirations because they are often not well remunerated. These people battle with survival alongside discharging their professional duties and are susceptible to collecting gratification and sacrificing the ethics of their profession in the light of such economic barrage.
Nigerian politicians, knowing how economically disabled most professionals are, capitalize on their economic ailment to do incalculable damage on their psyche. FFK could address the Journalist brashly with incivility at the press conference because the reporters often receive gratification to get the job done against their professional ethics, the excuse for this often given is that the reporters are underpaid by their employers and so it is not out of place for them to receive kickbacks from politicians or whoever to get the job done. At the point in the conversation the journalist forgets the cryptic manifestation of damage that this will cost him , to a professional scale.
This for me is more of a class struggle dispute between the elites and the commoners. The commoners live with the huge suspicion, justifiable though, that the political elites undertake projects or assignments for reasons beyond what they are willing to disclose and are often sponsored by hidden hands or kingmakers who have surreptitiously mastered the art of manipulating society with underlining ulterior motives to either enslave them to a deeper degree of weighbridge or elongate their captivity thus keeping the curve of freedom unflattened for as long as perceivable . On the other hand, the elites, seeing the commoners are under ruthless bondage, scorn them with derogatory remarks, disparage their reputation in the estimation of the right thinking members of the society,hence forcing them to remain timid and lost in the depth of ignominy and hopelessness.
The job of a journalist is of national importance. Section 22 of the 1999 Constitution as amended empowers the press to hold government accountable to the people at all times. The press, radio, television and all agencies of the mass media shall at all times be free to uphold the fundamental objectives contained in this chapter and uphold the responsibility and accountability of the Government to the people. The above-mentioned provision confers a far-reaching national assignment on journalists to serve the society, part of which requires them to carry out investigative reportage, ask probing question and interrogate the unthinkable to bring society up to speed to its level of growth, development or decay.
With this huge assignment, the journalist comes under an obligation to go to any length to get to the truth and report same in line with ethics of the profession. It is therefore uncalled for to yell at a man under such national assignment, to cow him into submission, so as to enable you evade a simple question.
The press is under an obligation to know the motive behind the project and the possible sponsors for a detailed and balanced story. Politicians in Nigeria corrupt whatever they come in contact with. The legal profession and the court system have suffered same in the hands of politicians who are bent on circumscribing the nobility of the profession for selfish gains and leaving it in shambles of perpetual distress.
The media must be courageous, brace up to bigger challenges and empower their reporters economically to remain independent of the political class or run the risk of being dragged and disgraced all the time for want of compliance to rules set for them by political underdogs who seek to have their ways at all cost in the scheme of things.
Evans Ufeli Esq is a Legal Practitioner, he writes from Lagos Nigeria.
