Date Published: 06/29/09
Hatchet Woman-in-Chief
By Felix Mabaogunje
Since when did Nigerian journalism profession become a recruiting field for hatchet writers? May be I am missing something but from reading Thisday Editor, Ijeoma’s piece of Monday June 7 th 2009, I smelt a rat. Actually, there were rats running around and blind punches in the air as I read through. Let the truth be told, Thisday Editor Ijeoma Nwogwugwu chose the wrong battle to lose her friends’ hearts and minds. Her backpage article of Monday June 8 th which carried the title ‘As Madam Dora Blows Hot and Cold’ dwelt too much on the absurd and did too much damage to the writer, the Thisday newspaper and its traditions. The paper once known for its objective disputations was, on this occasion, sold for a mess of porridge. And to me as a reader, this has stirred an editorial humbling. If I always thought that writers did what they did for the advancement of the nation and the deepening of democracy, this hatchet job has given me food for thought. In the evaluation of Nigeria’s highly intellectual public, which Ijeoma inveterately pays no attention to, there is no honour among rogues. This group had previously held Ijeoma in high esteem. She used to be ranked alongside the Thisday elite team of writers, people like the introspective Eni-B, the humorous Simon Kolawole, the leftist and principled Kayode komolafe, the idealistic and patriotic Abdilrazaque Bello-Barkindo and the historic legalistic Yusuf Olaniyonu. And of course the cerebral writings of Waziri Adio. Until recently, her position would have been without question, secure. But the outcome of Monday’s intervention was unequivocally poor quality and it changed all that perception which over time usually distinguished itself clearly from reality.
Her write up did it: she provoked and provoked and provoked and that hardly comforted. Ijeoma was more provocative in what her write-up signified than in what it said. What was not said was more potent and damaging to the writer than the subject, and than what was said.
But let me first espouse the weather-beaten line used in most rejoinders that the write-up would not have merited a comeback but for the factual errors and innuendos therein. This is truer in no other case than the fool’s gambit that Ijeoma would have run home relishing. Ijeoma quoted copiously from the NCC Act but decidedly looked away from the true interpretations of the Act. And I shall respond just as arbitrarily to her deliberate innuendos and fools gambit because they abuse all sensibilities through and through. Quoting section 123 (1), she wrote that the telecoms regulator is empowered to independently regulate licensing, tariffs and interconnection disputes in an “impartial and independent” manner. Yes it is. And when it does so with clear evidence of partiality does she expect the supervising ministry to fold its arms and behave as if all is well?
Perhaps, Ijeoma needs to be schooled a little bit about the other side of the NCC story. NFMC is a body established by NCA 2003 to manage National Frequency Spectrums. Section 28 Sub-section E of the Act clearly states that the Council shall be responsible for “bulk trans-sectoral allocation of spectrum to statutory bodies that are authorised by enabling laws to allocate spectrum to end users”.
Section 29, Sub-section 4 of NCA 2003 further states that “the decisions of the Council Committees shall not be effective binding and valid until they are adopted and agreed upon by the NFMC”.NCC, NBC etc are members of NFMC (Section 27, Sub-Sections F and G of NCA 2003). On the 6 th of January, 2009, NFMC wrote a memo to the Honourable Minister of State for Information and Communications (HMSIC), who was the Chairman of NFMC, complaining that NCC was usurping its function by advertising the sale of Sub-bands 1912.5 – 1917.5MHz; 2010 – 2025MHz etc. They also complained that NCC had earlier advertised the sale of 2.5GHz and 2.3GHz sub-bands for which they were advised to stay action until the approval given by the former Minister is ratified by NFMC. How can NCC arrogate to itself all the powers thereby trampling with abandon the rights and responsibilities of other entities. The issue here is not about personalities, but more about the process and what the law says and demands of all parties.
Recently in Ghana, an official of the NCC from Nigeria gave a breakdown of the business of the NCC as far as the 2.3MHz distribution is concerned. The NCC, he said at that session, was empowered to break the bulk it has to viable sizes of spectoral blocks in a way that it translates to efficiency without wastage to the spectrum, cheaper services without losses to the service provider and fewer sites without harm to the communities. This implies wise and sensible deployments and lower tariffs to the end user. The task is even more explicit when it comes to tenders and bids according to the NCC chieftain. It runs from the level of interest shown which decides allocation following an empirical way of satisfying all interests without prejudice as has been worked out. It ranges from assigning blocks administratively in the case of few interests, to “beauty contests” if there are many interests as the NCC rules stipulate. These boil down to making sure that the best interests are served and the lowest tariffs are again, offered the end user. These principles were jettisoned by Ijeoma’s paymasters either because they wanted to perpetuate the fraud or justify it. And for the first time in the history of journalism, one of its own sees more merit in defending insincere profiteers over the welfare and wellbeing of her people. It’s a shame.
Ijeoma also fretted on many irrelevant grounds, prominent of which is why Dora sent a report to the EFCC raising the alarm that an economic crime is in the offing. The guilty are afraid. The simple reason why Dora did what she did is that it is the right thing to do. What went on at the NCC was an economic crime. It required the attention of the appropriate agency to investigate. What Dora stands by is called due process and the rule of law, regardless of whose ox is gored. To wonder why the NBC and the NMFC did not find their voices earlier is not just foolish but outlandish. NBC and NFMC were not the injured in the matter. But wait they did something. Ijoema, if you took the time to check all sides of the story, you would have found out that both NBC and NCC were injured severally by NCC in some way because they had their power usurped and they complained. If there are no reports of wrong-doing they would not go to town saying there were, so far as everybody is happy. Besides, by selling what it did not have, the NCC had crossed the line and needed to be brought to order.
On the issue of an unfettered independence for the NCC Ijeoma displayed a shocking level of journalistic disability. Three supposedly independent institutions in this country, the CBN, the ICPC, and the EFCC all answer to ministries. Why should the case of the NCC be different, if one may ask? Where was she when the EFCC under Ribadu slugged it out with the justice ministry over who should regulate its excesses and who shouldn’t? Journalists are supposed to inform, educate and entertain and when in doubt they should leave out, not confuse the unlettered. It is time that writers to come off their high horse, where they see everybody as intellectually subservient and consumers of all junk factual, inchoate or even crazy. It is time writers know that there a lot more intelligent people reading newspapers than there less enlightened people. Caution is the word here or one could lose the credibility he or she might have built over time for peanuts. Ijeoma’s disappoints with her lack of a presence of mind.
Ijeoma’s writing also contained a position which could only have belonged to a prehistoric era. Any editor could sit in his cosy Lagos office and throw caution to the dogs and watch his own Rome burn, by allowing his reporters embark on journalistic rascality. But when it is the editors themselves doing so, the price society pays is innumerable. Whilst this is sickening to the extreme because all of the editors’ ‘great achievements’ would go to the dogs and be itemized in the past tense, it also drags the country into, to use avionic terminology, an uncontrolled spin. That is Ijeoma’s fate. The thing that should infuriate anyone should be the mention of ‘Re-branding’ which ordinarily even by Dora’s admission and sermon is to mature in several years, minimum five and an editor is calling it dead on arrival. The Minister’s timeline for Re-branding deliverables is based on sound judgement and informed by similar Branding efforts by other countries. It took Norway six years, Australia about eight years and, Scotland ten years. Dora’s Re-branding is barely six months and you pronounce it dead! Pleeease!
For Ijeoma, last Monday’s entry was a bad and desparate investment. It did not matter to her if the future of Nigerian children went to the marines. She was determined to profit from it even if it would break her heart. But profit is a double-edged sword. It can result in far greater losses that one would wish it didn’t come. With her current take on this issue, a bet on Ijeoma’s intellect would yield a huge deficit being a mother herself. She has fallen victim of the soft power strategy of little pink notes. She has damaged reason to the extent that only a hatchet woman-in-chief could achieve.
For some, inducement might have stirred up this "hatchet factor" which Ijeoma has now become queen mother. For others Ijeoma is now a personification of a perfidious professional summersault. And for some more like me, Ijeoma has only unwittingly started a much-needed conversation, not about tolerance and progress but about what drives journalists, ethics or personal gain.
Felix Mabaogunje writes from Kaduna. Email:mabogunjefelix@yahoo.com
