The Ritual Called Press Briefing
“The change in monthly ritual called the presidential press briefing augurs well for the future of press freedom and open government in Nigeria. Now that the government has accepted the challenge for an open exchange of views, the journalist needed to do a lot of home work.”
The ritual had changed, and the room showed it. On the first Wednesday of every month, around the Oval Room, that is the conference hall of the State House, Ribadu Road, Lagos, Vice-President Alex Ekwueme held court for the media executives. It was an almost religious affair. Even on the first Wednesday of January when the vice-president was slightly late, having been held in air traffic from Enugu, Charles Igoh, the President’s Chief press secretary, tactfully persuaded the executives to wait for Dr. Ekwueme’s arrival. As the vice-president arrived straight from the airport in the company of his wife, he made directly for the conference room and excused himself from the briefing that day because he was due at an Executive Council meeting where President Shehu Shagari was making formal the cabinet reshuffle that he announced later that evening. But the ritual has changed. The unwritten rule of the monthly briefing was that matters discussed there were privileged, not for broadcasting and publication. It was a practice that the military government started, and which the civilian government saw as a public relations bonanza which it continued.
On one afternoon when the vice-president discussed in confidence with the news executives the findings of the Irikefe Commission which looked into the so-called missing N2.8 billion oil money and the findings of the Okigbo Commission on Revenue Allocation, this reporter saw something rather unhealthy taking place. After that particular briefing, I wrote a column cricising the format as symbolizing a form of closed government. When the opportunity arose, I mentioned my concern to President Shehu Shagari during a meeting he had with the Nigerian press at the Blair House in Washington. I even asked the president to find time to meet with the press in person regularly. Subsequently, the president held a luncheon for the news executives and pledged to find time to meet more often with the press. It was a Wednesday afternoon, after the regular monthly briefing by Dr. Ekwueme. It was during the briefing that the vice-president told the news executives that his monthly briefing would become partially open. By that, Dr. Ekwueme was saying that matters discussed at the monthly briefing would be open for broadcast and publication, except those designated as privileged.
The vice-president’s mannerism on that afternoon matched the occasion. In the former briefings, Dr. Ekwueme’s fuse could be short, and his utterances were known to be cutting. He had the figures and the facts and he parried the journalists’ questions and comments with something akin to condescension. But not any more. Knowing that the journalists now could go out there and report anything and add their comments, the vice-president appeared affable, matching wits with bright questions and using wit to dismiss those that were not worth intelligent responses. Even just as the vice-president was prepared, as usual leafing through his biblical copy of the constitution, referring to sections in the document without effort, and ticking off figures and facts from memory without fear of contradiction, the journalists seemed ill-prepared. The journalists’ questions fell far below the vice-president’s preparation for the day. On two occasions during the afternoon, he used the argument of double standards to debunk a question which appeared hostile and another issue that Dr. Ekwueme referred to that was published in the Sunday Sketch in the “Private Eye” column.
The interesting one was that connected with “Private Eye’s” attack on the vice-president. It had to do with a publication in the column which said the vice-president had descended on the Nigerian Industrial Development Bank on the basis of an anonymous later. Chuckling and looking at the editor of the Sunday Sketch right in the eye, the vice-president said, “Femi,” that is Femi Oredein, “you are guilty of double standard” by criticising him for acting on an anonymous letter which accused the bank of sort of tribalism or sectionalism. The vice-president defended his action, citing his oath of office, and said that he would have failed in his duties if he didn’t act on the letter in question, since the letter seemed to have some interesting facts. He said all that he did was to make inquiries on the contents of the letter, and that was a responsible thing to do. He then applied the “double standard” stick on those who pressed the federal government to act against Mr. Paul Unonogo, the former minister for steel development, on the basis of anonymous letter written against the former minister, and that the same critics came back to attack the federal government for making inquiries on the contents of an anonymous letter.
For whatever it is worth, the change in the monthly ritual called the presidential press briefing augurs well for the future of press freedom and open government in Nigeria. How that the federal government has accepted the press challenge for an open exchange of views, the journalists might have found that they needed to do a lot of home work to match the vice-president. Dr. Ekwueme seems to be more than a match for the journalists, if one reached that conclusion from the proceedings of the first open session. Even matters that were not current were on the finger tips of the vice-president. He was mildly critical of party supremacy in parliamentary matters, repeating his position that in a presidential system, parliamentarians ought to be able to vote their conscience. He was belligerent as ever, only he used wit to throw his barbs at those critical of the Shagari government.
The open press briefings which the journalists fought so hard for has turned into a challenge for them, and they must of necessity prepare more than a little for future encounters with Dr. Ekwueme. It was refreshing that the vice-president was the one who had to meet the press, for he gave the promise of a man who would give the Nigerian news executives food for thought.
©Sunday Concord, February 15, 1981
(Pp.103-105)
