Tinubu, Obaigbena: Media owners and their warrior journalists – Part 2

Now, to the second segment – the public affairs commentary on the saga that pitted ageing Alake/Onanuga against the younger Abati/Oseni with Obaigbena providing backup for his boys. Rufai Oseni, in his early 40s is the youngest. He carries on with a cocky arrogance, apparently conscious of his high standing with the audience. I have not read any record of his journalism training, except that he has worked in several radio and TV stations, majorly as sports reporter and analyst. And sports is about entertainment, so he brought the titillating touch to anchoring an interview programme which is a serious business.

Oseni read Animal Anatomy and Physiology, and given the clinical way he confronts quests on the Arise TV programme, perhaps the Jagaban is afraid the young man may dissect his political anatomy and expose his innards to public view! The $460,000 Tinubu forfeited in connection with a drug trafficking investigation in the U.S. remains a major burden that won’t go away, in spite of the strenuous efforts of his propaganda team. Oseni has the nickname ‘ Ruffdfire’, surely the Jagaban won’t want fire to burn him in an Oseni incendiary!!.

So, is Tinubu afraid to “lule” (crash) to ambush questions from Oseni? Reuben Abati read Theatre Arts (PhD) but at least had a minimum professional qualification with a certificate in journalism from University of Maryland, United States (1996-97) As a Theatre artist, Reuben is a master of word play, beautiful spoken English, except that he often forgets that his duty, as anchor, is to ask questions, not sermonizing his quests in long, winding sentences, laced with editorializing. He apparently has not read Larry King, of the famous ‘Larry King Show’ on CNN who gave the injunction that if it takes more than three sentences to ask a question, it is a bad question.

Dele Alake is the pugilist per excellence who must have infected Onanuga with his stridency. He is aggressiveness personified and Tinubu seems to be his new God, after Chief M.K.O Abiola. I sympathise with Alake. In spite of serving Tinubu loyally, he had not been able to go beyond state level appointment while those who came on board the political train after him have become governors and ministers. Somebody said maybe villagers from his Ikoro-Ekiti hometown are ‘’ following him’’!

Alake loves to project intellectualism, posturing as a scholar. I sympathize with him. You see, with a 1981 Masters degree in Mass Communication, Dele Alake has been stuck in the halfway station on the intellectual train journey to PhD destination. He is apparently putting all he has in this last-stand political battle for a last laugh to get a federal appointment in a Tinubu Presidency, hence the no-holds-barred dogfight with Obaigbena and his THISDAY/ARISE NEWS crowd.

Bayo Onanuga qualifies as journalism professional not only by mass communication academic training and media practice, but by the integrity and ethical conduct he has brought to journalism practice. For instance, he resigned from Concord newspaper rather than accept MKO Abiola’s directive to apologise for a factual story the military leadership considered offensive. That is passing the integrity test. He did an investigative report on an investment icon of his Ijebu-Ode hometown, based on principle, devoid of ethnic consideration, and also got a reporter who fabricated a story fired when he was Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria, despite opposition from vested quarters. That is passing the ethical Journalism test. But at age 65, Onanuga and Alake, 66, are ancients in active mass and strategic communication practice, but who have failed to display the maturity that age bestows.

Overall, the media is on the ropes, world wide, largely because journalists have become partisans, guns for hire to vested interests. The public spat between the Tinubu and Obaigbena camps has highlighted the self-serving, but unmerited self-righteousness of many journalists, that bothers on irrationality. This is manifested by the two warring camps breaching the ceasefire agreement of letting bygone be bygone brokered by Chief Segun Osoba and Mr. Sam Amuka Pemu, the Vanguard publisher, as elders of the journalism profession and the leaders of the Nigerian Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria, NPAN, the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and Nigeria Union Journalists (NUJ).

This is disrespect and intransigence of the highest order, and exposes the fallacy of preachment of press freedom as freedom from any restraint, either by government or professional body, which media scholars term negative press freedom. Journalists and other media practitioners must be made to understand that the media is a strategic industry that at some point, risks government intervention, as warned by the Hutchin’s Commission Report of 1947 on the Freedom of the Press in the U.S. where the media failed to self regulate and be professionally, ethically responsible in its conduct.

Concluded

Dr. Olawunmi, Senior Lecturer, Department of Mass Communication, Adeleke University, Ede, Osun State, is former Washington Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria. Phone (SMS only) 0803 364 7571 Email: olawunmibisi@yahoo.com.