The compelling consideration inherent in the necessity to ennoble our search for the most suitable helmsman for the Nigerian political space come 2023 has unfortunately degenerated into diversionary brickbats even as clearly simple ethical positions have been conveniently misunderstood. Universally-applicable principles of fairness, equity and justice are being cavalierly side-stepped even in the stark reality of the unsustainability of any contrary theorising regarding the aforementioned irrefutable directive principles of human conduct. A proper search for our cherished ideal requires an interface of the candidates for our most coveted public office with the public as we employ the instrumentality or facilities of the press. It will, however, appear that there is no unanimity regarding the appropriateness or effectiveness of presenting the candidates before the public for grilling. A section of the political class has deigned that their candidate will be short-changed thereby. It wants its candidate to be spared the rigor or the presumed partiality of a section of the press regarding interviews, debates, or question-and-answer sessions positioned for laying bare the plans and programmes of the candidates.

In the last two weeks, the Nigerian media have assailed their public with a potpourri of the most putrid kind manifesting in damaging or scurrilous exchanges from the dramatis personae, of a fictive defence of the right of the public to know, on the one hand and the whining defence of some empty, hypocritical bearing, on the other. The proxy characters are Bayo Onanuga, Dele Alake and Nduka Obaigbena – all of them too well-known to the Nigerian public as practitioners of the art of journalism. It is popularly argued that Onanuga and Alake may have surrendered their art to the service of a patent political bias and now look more like apostates rather than apostles of the profession that made them.

On his part, Obaigbena has overtime combined journalism with a bullish business practice inviting that calling’s attendant foible manifesting itself in quirk, idiosyncratic habits or mannerism. As Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) Director of Media and Publicity and Director, Strategic Communication, Onanuga and Alake respectively are understandably the most visible and most strategic members of the APC presidential campaign council. The duo’s untenable defence of the Tinubu methods in the light of public apprehension and disgust of his incomprehensible language and blundering streak in his public outings has cast a dark pall on the presumed professional independence of a media practitioner in the service of a principal.

The mythical depth and breadth earlier on ascribed to Tinubu have, in the course of many gaffes with which he has entertained his audiences become a subject of interrogation as to the truthful position of things. The gaffes and speech impediments have questioned the proverbial ingenuity of Tinubu. Afraid that Tinubu may publicly explode the myth of the ascription to him of a larger-than-life wisdom, knowledge and understanding of all issues miscellaneous or pertaining to Nigeria’s socio-political and economic situation, his campaign team has shielded him away from participation in invitation to debate or to be interviewed regarding his considered position on key national issues of the moment or of the Nigerian question. Invitations to him to attend debates have been interpreted as designed to “embarrass” him. In pursuit of this offensive, Onanuga and Alake have latched on a claimed crooked business or media dealing of Obaigbena, the proprietor of the media group that invited Tinubu to a Town Hall debate. They have gone on to vow “never to make our candidate available to validate {an unnamed} scheme which in the light of unassailable information at our disposal” is a racket by the organisers of the Town Hall debate.

The argumentum ad ominem or the commission of fallacy of attacking the person instead of the subject matter or of side-tracking the issue and dwelling on irrelevant matters is troubling. Inherent in the Onanuga and Alake syllogism has arisen a feared flawed study of the realisation that human intellect or memory and human justice are frail at their best. The same logic that was used to project Buhari as the best candidate for the office of president in 2015 and for dispelling concerns about his inability to communicate effectively or to meet the press is being tediously recited. It is usually prefaced with a cognate fault, “Tinubu is the most experienced of all the candidate.” Their facts have refused to stand out stark, clear or simple as they are muddled with partisan maudlin emotion just to score some mawkish self-pitying point. For how does Obaigbena’s alleged financial malfeasance in some foreign land answer the requirement for candidate Tinubu to present himself for interrogation or public scrutiny as to his suitability for the office he seeks. For instance, his campaign team’s sophism as a response to the demand for satisfactory answer to the circumstances conducing to the forfeiture of funds to the U.S. government Tinubu in an alleged Chicago drug-dealing has compounded their fallacies. They spewed out irrelevant track records alleged to be opponent’s foibles: Obaigbena owed taxes abroad and drives his workers too tediously, they have wearisomely alleged.

Onanuga and Alake have conveniently side-tracked the riveting allegation against their principal and instead have indulged in ad hominem paroxysms. Instead of offering documentary indefeasible evidence of Tinubu as a wholesome, clean and unimpeachable person, they have mischievously awoken the Mephistophelian spirit of Buruji Kashamu whose alleged drug dealing became a major diversion for the PDP in Ogun State and whose death paradoxically brought peace to the embattled environment. They have recalled with sardonic glee Reuben Abati’s association with Kashamu as he ran alongside him to be his running mate in the gubernatorial contest for Ogun State. Onanuga and Alake tended to apply the untenable principle of “guilty by association.” It is however, a moot point whether their own association with Tinubu, given the barrage of allegations of criminal and ethical mis-adventures against him, does not rub off on them or makes them complicit. Issues have been conveniently obfuscated just to confuse the unwary and runaway with unearned victory.

If the issue is understood by Onanuga and Alake as being that Tinubu has no obligation to attend Arise’s Town Hall meeting for fear of the organisers’ malicious bias, a certain number of NGOs plying the political/electoral reforms agenda can come together and take on all the presidential candidates one by one in incisive, forthright, and penetrating question-and-answer sessions for determining the suitability or relative purposefulness of the candidates. It is strange that in dubbing the Arise platform as partial against their principal, Onanuga and Alake have discounted the role of the people as the proper umpire. Only the people can properly observe and determine the extent of the relevance of or note the unconscionable bias in the questions put to the candidates. Onanuga and Alake cannot be judge in their own cause. They cannot abjure or deny the people’s will for robust, enlightening and persuasive debates by the candidates. The debates are themselves an incident of the people’s constitutional right of choice. This right must not be truncated or otherwise hijacked by hangers-on or persons whose job description does not necessarily redound to the public good.

The reputation of the press as the Fourth Estate of the Realm may not be feared tainted by the contrived skirmish in which Onanuga and Alake are mere pawns. We must all be cheered by our cherished understanding of the press as belonging to an order that is as old as the beginning of time, noble as virtue and which thankfully is as necessary as the polity. The feverish attempt of the Nigerian Press Organisation (NPO) to make the contestants sheath their swords sorely missed the point. The real issue is not assuaged by an es spirit de corps sentimentality as the responsibility to present the presidential candidates for public scrutiny cannot be shirked by the press.
Rotimi-John is a lawyer and public affairs commentator.