If you have never been at the receiving end of media propaganda you may never know what those who complain about the media being unfair to them are talking about. My baptism in media fire was at the University of Lagos where as Secretary- General of the Students Union I had to undertake measures that incurred the displeasure of powerful student interest groups. Campus media power was located in two publications; The Hook and The Viper. Oh how they checked excesses on campus; how they forced liberated girls on campus to seek alternate rendezvous with their sugar daddies off campus. It was fun to read the magazines; that is if you were not the subject of the fun. Matters that were outrageously libellous were treated with pawn on those pages. Yeah who could complain' It was campus life anyway.During my tenure as Secretary-General, many editions of these magazines sold out by the grace of the cover stories they had on 'OduKissinger'. Not that the stories were true, but it was good copy to attack the symbol of students union administration, particularly as I was the highest officer on the main campus.The President was at the College of Education campus and the Vice President was at the College of Medicine. Are you wondering about the name OduKissinger' My father would have been pretty surprised to find out that the Oduwole name he cherished so much had been so corrupted by the accident of the fact that his son shared a students' union job description with Henry Kissinger who was the Secretary of State in the United States of America at that time. A particularly close female associate of mine got a raw deal each time these stories were published. They never failed to refer to her as Mrs Odukissinger nee Kangaroo. What her business was with students' union politics to warrant such intense focus, I could not understand. I know how it feels when you and your own are unnecessarily faced with a hostile media. For days you may not be able to sleep well; any low conversation around you must certainly be about you, by those who have read and believe the nonsense that has been published about you. Call it paranoia, call it hypersensitivity, call it guilt. I learnt all of that even before I started reporting about people as a journalist.What did I take away from this campus experience' The need to investigate all matters carefully before publishing anything about anyone. Even the word of God enjoins us to do that in our daily relationships. Investigate all matters and hold on to that which is the truth. I imagine that a number of journalists who have disdainfully failed to find out the truth of matters before publishing may be surprised to find themselves in hell on judgement day for failing to live by the wise counsel of God. How interesting it would be to be present when Journalist Onigegeara [Wonder pen] is called to give account of the myriad malicious stories he had written while alive. What would be his excuse for publishing lies without investigating' I guess he would claim constraints of time; I had no time to check the story out or find out from the other party because we had to publish that evening. Or he may plead no response from the other party; when I called his phone, it was not answered. Yet he might say 'I was hoping to publish the other side later on but I got so busy I never got round to doing so'...Then a loud voice would boom...DEPART...and away to hell fire Onigegeara would go. Oh Lord, catch for us our little foxes; the little foxes that ruin our vineyards; our vineyards that are in bloom. I wonder what this young journalist I met a few weeks ago will tell God when he is confronted with his sins of not holding on to the truth. I asked him at a meeting why he did not find out the other side of a public statement by a government agency before publishing. He politely told me that my journalism memory must be failing, as it was taught in journalism school that 'privileged information' need not be cross-checked before publication. If he went to journalism school at all, his journalism teachers will certainly be quick to disown him. If he insists on his bogus 'privileged information' theory, they will certainly be in order if they consider a revocation of his certificate. One of the earliest rudimentary definitions of journalism was that 'journalism is the publication of something that someone does not want published'. The spirit of that early definition is investigation. Investigation is the soul of journalism. Tragically for the Nigerian media, that soul is dying. Laziness and the love of quick money have conspired to murder the soul of journalism in Nigeria. And they are winning; I mean the duo of laziness and quick money.A popular newsroom parlance is 'para dey go'. That refers to paragraphing public statements and sending them for publication without any editing of some kind. It is becoming an increasingly difficult problem in journalism today. Read one newspaper and you might as well have read all. Speeches at public functions, statements by government and other public agencies and routine coverage of public institutions are what you get from them all. What has happened to journalism in Nigeria' The fathers of the profession must be ill at ease wherever they are. Twenty- Thirty years ago it was not like this. We took pride in uncovering the unusual story. I recall two of such stories at the Nigerian Television Authourity Ibadan in 1984.The Nigeria Police CID branch Iyaganku sent an early morning invitation to the media to attend Next I located the mechanic garage at the Tollgate area of Ibadan. With camera rolling, I asked for the man whose name was on the card from some apprentice fellows. They acknowledged he was their boss and had not arrived at work. Two elderly persons, a man and a woman were seated on a wooden bench in the garage. I was told they were the parents of the person I wanted to see. I approached them and asked for a description of their son; obviously one of the killed men on the CID lawn. I told them their son's corpse was paraded that morning by the police at Iyaganku. The mother went into hysterics, shouting that her son was not a robber. The father broke down weeping. I was taken to the man's house where I saw a Nissan bus that was receiving a transformation attention in a hidden corner of the house. It was being repainted and the registration number on the side screens of the vehicle was different from robbers but that did not stop my investigations. After three days I produced a news report of the event that cleared the family name of the men killed by the police. What actually happened' The men were agents of a local branch of the Union of Road Transport Workers at the Iwo road area park. Some unregistered transporters were in the habit of fishing for passengers around their park and the union had decided on a form of punishment referred to as 'chaining', whereby they would detain the offending vehicle for days.This day, an unregistered vehicle was fishing for passengers around the area and some members of the union were despatched to go after it and arrest the offending vehicle for 'chaining'. The chase went on some few kilometres into the Ibadan-Ife road. The chasing gang finally caught up with the offending vehicle and disembarked the driver and his passengers for some manual punishment before taking the vehicle back to Ibadan. Unfortunately for the chasing team, a Highway Patrol Team was approaching the point of 'arrest' of the vehicle. The driver being manhandled shouted Ole! Ole! [Thief] on seeing the police team approach. The chasing gang panicked and ran into the bush on foot; the police team opened fire and two people fell dead. Probably with the encouragement of the police team, the 'arrested' driver stuck to the allegation of robbery. I interviewed relations of the dead men. I raised questions about the money discovered on one of them. I was taken to a building site where the dead man had made arrangements to roof his house under construction that day. The person who supplied the roofing sheets and was billed to collect his money that morning, spoke on camera.The story left no one in doubt that the men were not robbers but victims of their own exuberant and lawless actions. The family did not get their breadwinners back but they were rescued from the tag and stain of a family of robbers. I picked up another corporate commendation from the management of NTA. By the time I left NTA, I had picked up 33 corporate, divisional and departmental commendations in eight years and a certificate of excellence as Best Reporter signed by General Manager Yemi Farounbi, a great promoter of media excellence himself.What has happened to reportorial capacity' Why would the EFCC, ICPC,SSS, Police etc. issue statements or make declarations that are not backed by proof and the media will publish and let them go unchallenged' Society is crying for real journalists who will help it uncover the ills of society, the negligence of those entrusted with public responsibility and hold every public officer to the trust and competence that his office demands, with proof. It is perhaps for the failing of this that the Nigerian society has become so corrupt and the public sector so inefficient. Or perhaps this is just a reflection of the decay in national life that has so sadly overtaken the country. God bless Nigeria. Text only to: 08070991006 abbeyzeekat@yahoo.co.uk
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