PAT ONUKWULI urges the media to test competence, character and programmes of candidates
In Greek mythology, the Trojan Horse entered Troy as a gift and revealed itself as a weapon. It looked like peace but carried destruction; it appeared innocent yet concealed danger. Public questions can do the same. Framed as inquiry, they may smuggle prejudice into debate; presented as scrutiny, they may revive stereotypes the press ought to dismantle.
This danger is greatest as Nigeria approaches the 2027 general elections, when media narratives can calm or inflame tensions, clarify or distort choices, and strengthen or erode public trust. The Fourth Estate is central to the credibility and inclusiveness of the process.
Television anchors occupy a privileged position within that estate. They question powerful people before millions. Access creates authority, and visibility creates celebrity. Yet the spotlight can also dazzle. Fame can strengthen confidence but encourage overreach; influence can serve the public but also seek applause.
Anchors are human, not infallible. They may prefer drama to necessity, virality to illumination, or validation to restraint. The ethical problem arises when provocation displaces investigation and a candidate is asked to defend not a policy, record or promise, but an inherited ethnic burden.
That concern arose during Seun Okinbaloye’s interview with Peter Obi on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics. Okinbaloye is an accomplished political journalist. Because his platform carries weight, questions about the January 1966 coup, the Civil War and whether Nigerians could trust an Igbo president required greater care.
The problem was not history itself. Nigeria cannot heal by pretending its wounds do not exist. The problem was that the questions seemed to cast a contemporary candidate under an ancestral cloud. Asking whether the country has moved beyond the so-called “Igbo coup” or whether northerners can trust an Igbo candidate risks turning ethnicity into evidence and memory into collective guilt.
No citizen should be held personally responsible for the actions of people who share their language, region or religion. An Igbo candidate did not plan the 1966 coup merely because they were Igbo. A northern candidate is not responsible for every military regime led by northerners. A Yoruba candidate should not inherit every grievance associated with Yoruba actors. Citizenship cannot become a courtroom where ancestry is permanently on trial.
The point extends beyond Peter Obi to every candidate and every community. Democracy weakens whenever politicians are reduced to ethnic representatives rather than leaders. The media should test competence, character, judgement and programme. It should not suggest that some Nigerians belong naturally at the centre while others must first obtain national permission.
History demands nuance. General Yakubu Gowon remains central to debates about the Civil War, while General Ibrahim Babangida’s reflections have reignited arguments about the January 1966 coup. Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang’s recent intervention also sought reconciliation. These developments show that memory is contested, not settled; complex, not convenient; national, not one group’s burden.
Journalism should interrogate history without weaponising it. It may ask how a candidate intends to build trust across regions, but it should ask all candidates. It may examine fears within the electorate, but it should not validate them through careless framing. It may confront division, but it must not legitimise it.
There is a difference between a difficult question and a loaded one. “How will your government reassure Nigerians across all regions?” examines policy and leadership. “Why should Nigerians trust someone from your ethnic group?” frames identity as an offence. One opens democratic space; the other narrows it. One challenges the candidate; the other indicts the community.
Television does more than transmit words. Repetition can turn suspicion into common sense, and prominence can turn bias into apparent truth. A stereotype is not harmless merely because it is phrased politely. A prejudice is not professional purely because it is delivered from a studio.
None of this requires vilifying Okinbaloye or any other anchor. A distinguished career should not preclude criticism, but a single questionable exchange should not erase years of contribution. The proper response is neither silence nor character assassination. It is accountability without humiliation, correction without cancellation, and firmness without malice.
Nigeria needs journalists bold enough to confront power and wise enough not to harm belonging. The microphone must be sharp, but not reckless; fearless, but not inflammatory; sceptical, but not sectional. The best interviewer asks not merely the hardest question, but the fairest.
As another election cycle approaches, broadcasters must remember that they shape democracy’s language, tone and boundaries. Every question can be a bridge or a barricade, a lamp or a shadow, an invitation to citizenship or a reminder of exclusion. The Fourth Estate must become not timid but more exacting. It should expose propaganda rather than recycle it, confront prejudice rather than mask it as inquiry, and widen the national imagination rather than shrink it into old fears.
The challenge is not to ask fewer questions, but better ones; not to suppress history, but to handle it responsibly; not to ignore identity, but to refuse its misuse. When journalism unites what politics divides, it strengthens the republic. When it divides what citizenship should unite, the Trojan Horse is already inside the gates.
Dr. Onukwuli is a legal scholar and public affairs analyst. patonukwuli2003@yahoo.co.uk