No Apologies, Please
“I was angry and my voice showed it, I told them that I had no apology working for Chief Abiola because I didn’t know what moral offcences he was supposed to have committed … I told them that I knew poverty and that it was a terrible thing and I wouldn’t want to share in it again.”
Government College, Ibadan, Old Students Association at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) held a symposium on what could be called press accountability in one year of the presidential system. Those invited to the symposium included Tola Adeniyi of the Tribune, Gbolabo Ogunsanwo of the New Nation, Sola Odunfa of The Punch, and his reporter. I was the only one who made it down to Ife. Dr. Anishe, a senior lecturer in Political Science who was the moderator of the discussion, did a quik double-take and resolved that I would hold brief for the whole Nigerian press. Apparently, it had been planned that the editors would be carefully led down a path to an arena of confrontation in which Dele Giwa would be made to argue with Tola Adeniyi or Gbolabo Ogunsanwo. In the folder carried by Dr. Anishe, I glimpsed the following: Concord, owned by NPN; Tribune, Sketch and Punch sympathetic to the UPN; and so on. But that anticipated square-off couldn’t take place since the others were not there.
I don’t think that we would have allowed the students to lead us down a path of confrontation. Journalists, irrespective of papers they work for, have an identical destiny. They are journalists first, before they are employees of any particular news organizations. In any case, I was entrusted that afternoon with the duty of answering for the entire Nigerian press, thus in place of what might have resulted in unhealthy bickering among journalists, the symposium occupied itself with instutional problems of journalism as an occupation and profession. To guide the discussion, Dr. Anishe came up with seven sub-headings which included the power of the press, investigative journalism, freedom of the press, credibility of the press, and a curious question of whether the press speaks for the people. On the last question, I said the press speaks for the powerful and its owners. That is the truth and the symposium appreciated it. On the other topics, I said the following: “The press is powerful. The press is credible in as much as any other institution in the country is above board. The press is free in as much as Nigeria is free, and that the truth is that Nigeria is as free as any country in the world.” However, I conceded that other factors make the press in Nigeria, and for that matter anywhere in the world, not absolutely free. I explained that investigative journalism was not as practicable as one would have liked because of communication problems and the penchant of Nigerians for keeping sealed lips.
When the issues were exhausted, Dr. Anishe opened the symposium to questions. And the question time started off well. But after three questions, blatant hostility entered the room. A fellow asked me how I could resolve what he called the contribution of believing in journalism for journalism sake and serving as my Master’s Voice. The second part of his question raised the issue of what he called my lack of ideological commitment, basing the statement on my earlier assertion that I had no ideological or political bias. I told my friend that I didn’t believe in journalism of commitment to partisan politics or to one particular ideology. My calling calls for an open mind, one that would enable me to take a dispassionate and dis-interested look at any issue or facts. That was that. Until a fellow went back to the same question and turned it into a personal attack of sort. One, he was saying not in many words that I had committed a terrible heresy by agreeing to work for Chief M.K.O Abiola who owns the Concord newspaper. Two, he said I had committed some form of fraudulence by saying that I had no ideology commitment. I was angry and my voice showed it. I told the gentleman that I had no apology for working for Chief Abiola because u didn’t know what moral offences the man was supposed to have committed. Two, I told him that I couldn’t possibly afford the luxury of involving myself in whatever ideological crusade he and his colleagues at the university were working on.
Although no one in particular had used the word socialism up to that point, I suspected that was the ideology I was supposed to be committed to, and I said so. Then I asked the man if he wasn’t demanding that I should look at the society through his eyes and that I didn’t see what he saw, then my position was untenable? I asked him and demanded an answer if he wasn’t saying in essence that his was the moral position which if I didn’t share would have made me of those people in the society he hated? I demanded an answer, but he couldn’t answer. I then proceeded to tell him that I disagreed that his position was the moral one, and that I didn’t care one way or the other about his ideological idiosyncrasy. Another fellow got up and that the discussion should not turned into that morality. He wanted, he said, to turn the discussion towards what he called philosophy of socialism. Even in philosophy, I told him, an idea exists called realism. I told him that I knew poverty, that it was a terrible thing and I would not want to share in it again. I grew up poor, I told him, and I would not like to live the way I grew up.
I explained further that I was for egalitarianism and I would not do anything to obstruct the path to it. However, I asked to be excused from its process because I could not afford the delight of propagating something that was at best elusive. Nigerians, I said, are inherently acquisitive, and the older generation still measures success in terms of the property one possesses. Thus I told the symposium, those who were at the head of the campaign to socialize this society were not merely looking to change the system of government in Nigeria. They would have to start by changing the way of life of Nigerians. For my middle income bearings and my work for Concord and Chief Abiola, I said in acknowledging the vote of thanks, I had no apologies.
©Sunday Concord, December 7, 1980
On Stanley Macebuh
Okay, so Stanley Macebuh’s piece in Daily Times of November 27 was brilliant, not for the arguments but the graceful writing. Most of the positions he expressed on the relationship between the press and the government were invalid. The insistence by the press for more access to the president and the government was not based on the need to be found in the corridors of power with President Shagari. Even if the president had refused to meet with the press, that would not have been enough to create a hostile relationship between the executive and the journalists. Any journalist who thinks in terms of “hostility” in relation to any person or institution must be suffering from a terrible misperception of his role. Dined or not dined, wined or not wined, an informed journalist will still keep his guard up, maintain that thing called adverse relationship with the government (but not hostile under any air) and report things as he saw them.
One error of fact, Stanley: Tola Adeniyi was not invited to the presidential luncheon that afternoon, that was why Presidential Shagari ordered that all the papers in Nigeria must be asked to future presidential engagements. Charles Igoh and Chief Olu Adebanjo must have been elated afternoon, not possibly because they thought that they had hoodwinked the journalists, but because they had succeeded in doing their job well: Making the president meet the press.
©Sunday Concord, December 7, 1980
(Pp.95-98)
