We Are Servants to Our “Masters”
“Dele, take consolation in the fact we are, all of us, servants of our “master.” The “master” could be a conscience, a press trust, a pay packet, an ideology, a person or a party. What is important is that we should not be slaves to our “masters.”
Dear Dele,
Judging by your character, integrity and personality, which I have had the privilege to gauge at close range, you could easily earn a slot in the category of “independence” journalists. But your professional view about the functions of the press which you had expressly, but maybe unfortunately, committed into writing, dictated otherwise. I refer to your Parallax Snaps column of Sunday Concord, February 22 and March 1, 1981, title “Recklessness of Dr. See Ess Momoh.” In the first part of your reaction to my article, “Press Freedom: A Case of Chasing the Shadow” (Sunday Times, Feb. 8, 1981) you wrote: “I (meaning Dele Giwa) have never said or written that a journalist must subscribe to a shade of opinion.” How do you reconcile this declaration with the following: “On the question (of whether the press speaks for the people) I (meaning Dele Giwa) said the press speaks for the powerful and its owners. That is the truth and the symposium appreciated it” (Sunday Concord, December 7, 1980, p.3, paragraph 8). What understood you to be saying, in view of your latest unsuccessful effort to redefine your position, was that even though a journalist speaks for the powerful and its owner, Dele Giwa was an exception to that general rule because he practices journalism of conscience and functional journalism! I concede that to you. After all there often are exceptions to any general rule.
Now that we have reached an understanding on your shot in my categorization, I wish to join issues with you on certain points you raised in your angry reaction. There were basically two aspects to your rejoinder. The first aspect was emotional and the second was substantive. In the emotional aspect you exhibited a tremendous capacity to undervalue myself and my ilk. You even displayed an amazing ignorance. Least expected of a newspaper editor, of what the discipline of philosophy was all about. Worst of all, you didn’t seem to possess the elementary patience to understand a person’s views before you opened your mouth to talk about them. In the substantive aspect of your rejoinder you tried to come to grips with my innocent request that you should take a second look at the basic beliefs of your school of thought. You hold the opinion that it was “probably enough for me (as with many other university teachers) to get something published even when I did not have anything to say.” It might interest you to know that I started “publishing” with newspaper as far back as 1967. Even in the United States I did quite a few pieces that were unpalatable to the powers that be in that country. I’ll continue to write for newspaper purely in performance of an unsolicited service for the nation.
There was no way I could ever put my pen on paper if I had nothing to say. The fact that you almost disemboweled yourself to answer the simple point I raised about school of thought was abundant testimony to that effect. Besides, if a philosopher had nothing to say on the theoretical presuppositions of any discipline or on the basic issues in any field of human endeavour, and I mean absolutely nobody, has anything to say. Your confusion would seem to have emanated, first, from your ignorance about what a school of thought was and, second, from your erroneous belief that philosophy has nothing to do with journalism. You said that you do not subscribed to any school of thought but that you “subscribe to functional journalism and journalism of conscience.” What would you say of a man who announced with all glee and fanfair that he did not sweeten his tea but only added sugar and honey to it.
You have a company in your erroneous belief that philosophy has nothing to do with journalism. He is Dr. Bisi Aborisade of the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos. Writing in the Sunday Times, February 22, Dr. Aborisade was furious that I dared walk on an “unfamiliar terrain.” Well, I wrote under the rubric of the Philosophy of Journalism. But judging from the elementary mistakes made by Dr. Bisi Aborisade I could see that he was not conversant with the philosophy of his own discipline. You may not have read Dr. Aborisade’s article but believe me, Dele, the learned doctor did not even know what a variable is ! From the rationalist school of thought in journalism Dr. Aborisade read that the concept of press freedom OUGHT to mean the same thing to all men. But from the empiricist school, he read that the concept of press freedom is a variable. The poor man, not knowing anything about the history of ideas, juxtaposed these two views and came up with the astonishingly ignorant assertion that the concept of press freedom was a variable which means the same thing to all men. How can a concept that is a variable mean the same thing to all men? My only hope was that Dr. Aborisade never fed any of his students with this sort of intellectual garbage. You can see then that you deserve sympathy more than anything else. You are a practitioner, not a teacher in the profession. If a teacher of journalism couldn’t grasp the different between the contesting philosophical presuppositions of his discipline, I think it would be unfair to be too hard on you.
You said that philosophy as a discipline did not understand processes and change. In the same vein you confessed that you were a functionalist. If there was any school of thought that was traditionally unable to explain and accommodate change and processes it was functionalism. You would agree that Heraclitus, Plato and Aristotle represent the beginning of Western Philosophy. Much of their philosophy dealt with the endorsement, accommodation, and explanation of change and processes respectively. Now, coming to your substantive section, you started by docking with one Olumide Owolabi who wrote in the Sunday Times of February 8 that I should have used more facts for my article title “Moral Attitude and Religious Mentality” (Sunday Times, Dec. 21, 1980).I now understand that article was a bit too abstract for the casual and hasty reader to comprehend. But I least expected that a young graduate like Owolabi would so quickly forget whatever intellectual skill he must have acquired in a university. The point I sought to make in that article was that human beings manifest constructive and petty attitudes in their worldly arrangements all of which were directly derivable from some three basic propositions by which they conceive of God. What Owolabi succeeded in doing was, in fact to highlight another area where human beings manifest the partial attitude. According to him “God as creator and the one responsible for our welfare grants without any request, things like the air we breathe, water, land, sun, rain, etc”. But he forgot to add that these things were not granted in equal and right proportions and at the appropriate time to “the just and the unjust alike.”
For instance, why was it that some people have barren land, prolonged periods or perpetual drought while other areas have too much sunshine or rain? Which goes to show why a government wouldn’t think anything wrong in concentrating most amenities in one locality to the detriment of another or a father pouring all his favours on one child to the neglect and annoyance of the others. You, like Owolabi, misunderstood and misinterpreted my writing. You quoted me as saying that the constitution seems to say (in respect of press freedom) that “the role of the communication institution in their paternal provision of the freedom of the press (was) to uphold what the government thought were its obligations and objectives.” I did not say anything of that sort. And if you took pains to reflect on what you wrote, you would have discovered that the quotation did not make sense. How can I be referring to the constitution and then talk “of their paternal provision.” I was referring to the framers to the constitution. My theory about the “works politicians and words politicians” may be queer but it made eminent sense and it was true at any rate. You said that “politicians were inherent addicts of publicity.” This statement was elliptical. What I understood you to be saying was that politicians like their activities publicized. And what I was saying was that the “word politician” would rather use his meager resources to acquire a media organ to publicise his projected programmes not his accomplished projects because they never are, instead of using the same resources to accomplish the projects.
You made your conscience such a big deal, thereby conveying the impression that your conscience and that of Chief Abiola, the publisher owner of the Concord Group of newspaper in which you were an employer, diverge in kind. But I did not see how. Nor did you show how. You agreed that “Chief Abiola had told anyone who wanted to know that he didn’t think for me or Doyin.” Can’t you see what a big joker you are to think that an intellectual technocrat of Chief Abiola’s status would leave you alone to think for yourself, at least on primary and fundamental issues. It was precisely because you conscience and his agreed on basic issues that he left you alone. By this I didn’t mean that you didn’t have the courage to halt his bluff if you had to. I know you do. What I meant was that your conscience and his did not if fact diverge in kind. Nor was there anything to be ashamed of in this. Chief Abiola is an enlightened man by any standard. He has a refined, altruistic, religious, and other-centred conscience. What more can one ask for in a man? You were not decided why you were angry at the categorization. You seem to be saying that either I should have grouped you in the same class with Tony Momoh (my brother!) or I should have deleted Tola Adeniyi from your class. But you would agree that in the light of your professional opinion that “the press speaks for its owner” it was impossible to group you with Tony Momoh who holds that “the press has to grab freedom.”
As for my resklessness” in having Tola Adeniyi in your group, you glossed over the fact that the inclusion of Chief Ajuluchuku’s name in that group indemnified that of Tola Adeniyi’s Chief M.C.K. Ajuluchuku is the most brilliant party theoretician in this part of the world you should count your blessing that you were in the same slot with him. Specifically on Tola Adeniyi, I have a more objective view of him. He was edged out of the Tribune because he started promoting Governor Bola Ige over and above other UPN governors without clearance from Chief Awolowo. But he performed very well on the job he was paid to do. I wish I could say that for many other Nigerians.
Dele, don’t feel bad about your slot. Take consolation in the fact that we are, all of us, servants of our “masters”. The “master” could be a conscience, a Press Trust, a pay packet, an ideology, a person or a party. What is important is that we should not be slaves to our “master.” I certainly, am not a slave to my “master” and I trust that you are not and never will be.
I am,
Your Tribesman,
See Ess Momoh.
–Dr. Momoh teaches Philosophy at the University of Lagos
Editor’s Note:
Dr. Momoh’s article, a rejoinder to a PARALLAX SNAPS column, is published without any editing, and Mr. Giwa will not comment on it now or in the future.
©Sunday Concord, April 19, 1981
(Pp.111-115)
