Steve Osuji: What Stinks is Hate-driven Journalism, Not Tinubu’s Aso Rock

Right of Reply By Davidson Okonkwo

Mr. Steve Osuji’s latest Expresso, entitled: “Tinubu’s Aso Rock Stinks,” is another infamous entry that painfully showcases the ignoble depth journalism practice has fallen in Nigeria.

Coming from a journalist of Osuji’s experience, a reader would have expected an article that at least provides balanced and fair information; an article that objectively guides the readers even while it may sting culprits and condemn proven bad systems.

Osuji would not observe this simple journalism practice ethics but would rather serve his helpless readers and unsuspecting public with half truths clothed in considered fancy phrases in a desperate bid to add flesh to his hate-driven propaganda.

Take this referred Expresso for example, if not that Osuji has become fully obsessed with and blinded by hatred to remember the difference between propaganda and decent opinion writing, he would not have wasted so many lines without at least offering his readers a single new piece of information.

From the beginning of the opinion piece to the end, Osuji failed to offer any piece of information that is not already in the public knowledge.

All he tried to do is to call highly placed government officials names even when he knows that none of these officials have been tried and convicted of these alleged crimes.

Osuji should know that even the least of readers in Nigeria today already knows that Prince Adeyemi Aderemi Matthew, the man who allegedly floated and ran the fake Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), reportedly accused Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, the Chief of Staff to the President, of receiving N400million bribe to aid the fake federal agency set up.

So, what we Nigerians and other general readers expect from seasoned writers and opinion moulders today is for them to provide us with facts or credible and fresh information that may help all of us to know the truth and not these continuous cheap and repeated efforts to weep up unnecessary sentiments.

This is no less an attempt by writers like Osuji to recruit others to join them in condemning and or hating some Nigerian leaders accused of committing crimes that have not been proven or tried by any competent court of law.

The point I am making to Osuji and his patrons is that even common readers of opinion pieces are aware that the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as Amended, in Section 36 (5) provides that “Every person, who is charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed to be innocent until he is proven guilty …”

Even more instructive is the fact that the law further presupposes that he who alleges must prove. This means that Gbajabiamila and all the other people currently accused of being involved in the PFIPC fraud should be presumed innocent until they are proven guilty.

Aware of this constitutional provision, a writer like Osuji should desist from his current brand of journalism practice, which at best can be described as a mere hate enterprise.

He must understand that Nigeria, the great Giant of Africa, is already wounded on many fields through arrows of hatred and petty jealousy recklessly thrown at her by biased minds that do not mean well.  Enough of these selfish and unpatriotic services.

Reacting particularly to Osuji’s analysis of what he called “Tinubu’s Reckless Feckless Gang,” vis-a-vis “The Mature Buhari Gang,” I chuckle at the realisation that Osuji has, at last, discovered something good in Buhari’s government!

Except that the reference to the so-called ‘Mature Buhari Gang,’ offered him the cheap basis to hit at President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s team, it is doubtful if Osuji, or any of his Patrons, who earlier dismissed Buhari and his team as ‘a bunch of senseless old men,” will ever declare publicly the merits of their experiences.

It would therefore appear that columnist Osuji belongs to the group of writers that present same piece of evidence as good or bad, depending on who they want to paint and with which colour in order to satisfy the current patron.

Talking about Tinubu’s team, Osuji wrote: “Quite unlike Buhari, Tinubu’s kitchen cabinet in Aso Rock, led by his Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, is a poorly constituted lot.

“While Tinubu has turned out more vulnerable than Buhari, his kitchen team has also proved to be less tutored and less circumspect than the Buhari team.

“Apart from Gbajabiamila, most other members of this class are small time weasels who were mainly personal and domestic staff of Tinubu in his earlier incarnations. None of the current Aso Rock key staff seems to have a grasp of the current call of duty.”

In my opinion, it is this kind of sweeping dismissals, which sometimes border on insolence and unnecessary arrogance that belittles Mr Osuji as a columnist of repute. Reading how he dismissed the key officials of Tinubu’s Aso Rock or Kitchen Cabinet, one wonders if he actually knows the leaders in question?

He said: “Apart from Gbajabiamila, most other members of this class are small time weasels who were mainly personal and domestic staff of Tinubu in his earlier incarnations.”

Yes, Femi Gbajabiamila, the Chief of Staff to President Tinubu, who manages the President’s calendar and advises him on policy, cannot be dismissed with such words.

Before his appointment as the Chief of Staff to the President, Gbajabiamila was the Speaker of the House of Representatives. His official records show that he has Law degrees from the University of Lagos and John Marshall Law School.

So, which of Tinubu’s key government officials would Osuji correctly describe with such demeaning diction? Is it George Akume, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, whose duty is it to coordinate federal government ministries and policies?

Before his appointment as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Akume was Benue State Governor. He was also a Senator and former Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

To many, it would seem extremely reckless to dismiss such a political leader, who also boasts Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Sociology from the University of Ibadan, as a domestic staff of Tinubu “in his earlier incarnations.”

If it was neither Gbajabiamila nor Akume that Mr Steve Osuji so addressed, was it Nuhu Ribadu, the National Security Adviser, who advises Mr President and Nigeria on security and oversees intelligence agencies?  I also doubt if he deserves to be so dismissed.

I said so because before his appointment as the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu was a retired Assistant Inspector General of Police and former Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Ribadu’s records also show that he has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Law from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He too cannot be fairly dismissed as a  “small time weasel” or domestic staff of Tinubu before they both came to Aso Rock.

It is, therefore, not correct to see or to portray today’s Aso Rock as currently led by key staff that do not have the right qualifications or experiences.

Instead of deliberately misinforming his readers on this very important issue, if Osuji feels that the current leadership of Aso Rock is not performing well, it would be more profitable and more honourable for him to find out what actually went wrong and honestly inform the public instead of taking a lazy man’s approach or lying to Nigerians that the men placed in positions of authority there are not qualified to hold such offices.

One of the issues Osuji set out to discuss in his column was how to unravel the mystery surrounding the creation and running of a fake federal government agency.

He seems to hold the view that the only way to investigate this serious matter is to first judge Aso Rock key officials, disgrace them and remove them from their seats.

He is of course entitled to hold this view, but it certainly does not mean that if the investigating authorities think otherwise, then they are both corrupt and not qualified.

This is what Osuji should learn about administration of justice. Unlike Osuji, Nigerian law enforcement agencies know what the country’s law allows concerning the fundamental rights of citizens and when to swoop in on a suspect.

But opinionated and seemingly reckless writers like him, who feel entitled, will neither avail the public the truth nor allow the law to take its course before publishing their judgements, in which they proclaim their perceived enemies guilty of yet to be investigated criminal charges.

*Okonkwo wrote from Imo State.