Corridors of Power
“Although the journalists seemed to enjoy rubbing shoulders with the mighty and the powerful, it didn’t look like they will merely echo the government’s position … albeit it was clear that the president would like the journalists’ sympathies more than their criticisms.”
A veritable romancing of the press by the Shagari administration has been on for some time now. It started when President Shehu Shagari received a delegation of the Nigerian Guild of Editors in his office at the State House. It continued with the monthly press briefing addressed by Vice-President Alex Ekwueme, followed by the excellent lunch served by Mrs. Ekwueme at the vice-president’s official residence at Ikoyi. The following day, President Shehu Shagari asked the news executives o join him in his ceremonial residence at Marina for lunch and a short give-take. Thus, the week could very well pass for the Nigerian Press Week. The occasion at the Marina State House was, of course, the more colourful. The editors showed up in their best clothes and brighter side of the morning. The president’s men also turned up in a powerful number, making it hard to know who exactly at that time commanded the attention of the president’s ears on the press.
Charles Igoh, the Chief Press Secretary, Chief Olu Adebanjo, Presidential Adviser on Information, John Nwodo, Presidential Special Assistant for Information, were all there, and it was apparent that some jockeying for power was going on, but it was not clear who was riding highest. When the Guild met the president, Chief Olu Adebanjo was not president, although he was on the premises of the Ribadu Road State House. Mr. Igoh welcomed the editors, took them to the president, but it was Mr. Nwodo who sat near the president during the editors’ short meeting. The sitting arrangement at the vice-president’s monthly briefing had been ritualized, so that one could not gauge the power of the president’s information officials by how they were seated around Vice-President Ekwueme. But when President Shagari lunched with the news executives on another occasion. Chief Adebanjo sat near the president in what seemed to be special living room set to the corner of the cavernous reception hall of the Marina State House. However, when the president later sat at the head of arrangement to take questions from the editors, it was Mr. Nwodo of all the president’s information men, who sat near the president Chief Adebanjo was somewhere in the room.
President Shagari made the point of presenting Mr. Nwodo to the editors as his Special Assistant for Information even as the president was correcting Mr. Igoh for erroneously introducing Abiodun Aloba to the editors as the president’s Chief Speech Writer. The president said that Mr. Aloba, aka Ebenezer Williams, was not his speech writer, that the veteran journalist was more than all that, that indeed Mr. Williams was his Special Assistant for Special Duties. President Shagari is a subtle fellow in many regards, but it seemed that the president was more than brusque with Mr. Igoh in the way he cut in on his press secretary to say that Mr. Aloba was not a speech writer. Reach whatever conclusion you want to reach from all of his, but who was the major-domo among the president’s men for information? John Nwodo, it seemed, was riding high or was he? The whole show, of course, was meant to prime in the nation’s preaa on the goings on in the Shagari administration. President Shagari appeared to be bending backwards to embrace the press, and it was clear that he would like the journalists’ sympathies more than their criticisms. The way to get this was in the oft-repeated appeal by the vice-president to the editors to educate the public. By whom the vice-president meant that he would like the journalists to explain the administration’s aspiration in positive light to the nation.
Although the journalists seemed to enjoy rubbing shoulders with the mighty and the powerful. It didn’t look like they will merely echo the government’s positions. This may explain why many of the editors didn’t seem to know the different between a question and a comment. At the briefing by the vice-president most of the editors who were asked to question Dr. Ekwueme took the occasion to disagree with him. One editor was in the habit of advancing a dissenting argument, reading politics to practically every issue. The vice-president, while trying to cool down his bubbling temper as the television and newspapers’ cameramen train their lenses on him, couldn’t help being sarcastic in reaching to the fellow’s partisan comments. The one that stood out was the editor’s remarks on the vice-president’s comments on the demolition of the federal government’s houses in Oyo State. The editor seemed to be acting as a spokesman for the Oyo State government when he said that he thought the incident took place because of lack of rapport between some state government and the federal government. Apparently bristling, Dr. Ekwueme lectured the editor on the efforts made by the minister for housing to reach accommodation with the Oyo State government. The vice-president then snapped: Did that justify what amounted to hooliganism on the part of a government sworn to uphold the law?
The truth was that the editors still came out badly at the end of the briefing by the vice-president. Questions, it seemed clear enough, were question, and a press conference was clearly not a lace for locking horns in arguments that were better left to the politicians. The journalists appeared to play into the hands of the government by limiting themselves to questions that pertained to the issues on which the government chose to brief the press. Things changed much for the better when President Shagari faced the editors. Although Mr. Igoh suggested that some speeches would be made – by the president and, presumably, by a representative of the editors – President Shagari said that no speeches were necessary, that he would be glad to take questions from the editors. That format, the most appropriate for a press conference, allowed the editors to ask questions on wide ranging issues. The president was questioned on why he failed to fulfil his promise to give up Daily Times if he became president. He begged off in a way by saying that he was confounded by the way and means to divest government’s shares in the company without inadvertently handing the paper to an interest or group of people who might then use such a strong newspaper to cause havoc in the nation. He asked the editors to suggest an ingenious way to do it, and added that he was still searching for a fault-free formula. The president said in an answer to another question that he was happy with the presidential system and that he saw the best device for a nation as diversified as Nigeria to have a president elected by all the people to lead them.
©Sunday Concord, March 8, 1981
(Pp.119-121)
