Minister Lai Mohammed’s N3.5m Fatwa

Minister Lai Mohammed’s N3.5m Fatwa
By Lasisi Olagunju

Information minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has charm and
candour. He is sharp with a brilliance competently spiced with
disarming humour. But last week, his charm failed him – and he had
to pronounce a ‘Fatwa’ on a reporter who released a video of him
serving a very big, expensive meal of a story: “It costs the
government about N3.5 million every month to feed him (El Zakzaky).
Honestly, don’t quote me, but these are the facts,” the minister
said in the video that went viral and sparked an outrage. Then he
fumed that the video should never have come out because he had
invoked the ‘off the record’ rule while addressing the media on the
Shiite leader’s case.
I pity him. Was that ground rule set in advance? Is “don’t quote
me” technically the same as “this is off the record”? Besides, for
a public figure, a cardinal rule in dealing with the media is never
to lower your guard and get bloodied. “You have a right not to be
ambushed. It is better to get back to a reporter than to misspeak,”
ex-US First Lady, Nancy Reagan’s spokesperson, Sheila Tate,
counseled government image minders decades ago. The rule has not
changed. The sad truth is our minister was not even ambushed by any
reporter; he simply mis-spoke.

Americans are a very well organised people, especially in public
engagements. In June 2003 after I took up the job of spokesman to
my state governor, the US Consulate-General in Lagos sent to me a
72-page manual. “A responsible press office: An insider’s Guide” is
what the author called it. It details the dos and don’ts of the job
that was to present itself to me as the grimmest of all human
endeavours. In and out of that job, that manual has remained always
very close to me. I don’t know if our Minister of Information has
seen and read it. If he hasn’t, he should ask that embassy to give
him a copy. He needs it – especially after that huge one he did
last week – facing rolling cameras and pronouncing a big piece of
news; then asking “please don’t quote me” – after saying it.

Every job has its rules. The press, of course, has – and the
‘off the record’ rule is one of them. The job of an information
minister or press secretary has its dos and don’ts too. My American
manual tells the government spokesman: “do tell the truth ALWAYS.
Do be honest and accurate. Your credibility and reputation depend
on it. Do admit it if you don’t know the answer to a question.
Offer to get the answer, and do so as quickly as you can. Do
correct mistakes immediately. State that you didn’t give an
adequate answer, and you would like to clear up the confusion. Do
assume that everything you say is on record. Do be as open with the
media as possible…” The list is quite long.

Now, what are the don’ts? I can count them. They are not as many
as the dos on that list: “Don’t lie — ever. Don’t say ‘No comment’
— ever. Don’t improvise, don’t speculate, and don’t guess. Good
reporters check facts. If you are wrong, your credibility will be
destroyed. Don’t try to put a comment ‘off record’ after you have
said it. Don’t be unresponsive…”

Towering in the dos and don’ts above is the key question of what
should be on record and what shouldn’t. You cannot call a press
conference, face a battery of reporters and cameramen with video
cameras rolling, shock your audience with the biggest news of the
year and then “try to put (the) comment ‘off record’ — after you
have said it.” What do you think you are doing or you have done?
The press- a responsible press — is never in bed with any
government. And, it is even worse now that what we have online is
not the media as we knew it. What is buzzing online is a fast-paced
monster whose survival depends on how much subversion it wreaks on
the status quo. If you do not wake up to that reality you will be
sorry soon. That was the own goal our information minister scored
last week which his belated firing-squad fatwa could not cure.

The experienced PR guru told a group of people – journalists and
online crusaders in Abuja — that his government spends N3.5 million
to feed a single human being per month and he thought he could get
away with saying that in this digital age. He should have known
there would be consequences for saying that at a crowded press
conference and in front of microphones and cameras that were not
there as ornamental nonsense. There would be follow-up questions
which would be asked there and then or later through other means.
If the social media generation can’t ask questions directly, they
always push the public to ask questions and demand answers from
power. N3.5 million per month to feed one man? Three million, five
hundred thousand naira to feed one person in 30 days! How much
would that be per day or per meal? The maths would be done by
everyone — including those of them who made F9 in Maths or even
Arithmetics.

The minister said this heavy stuff and everyone at the press
briefing gasped- and these included even one of his
minister-colleagues sitting right beside him. Lai Mohammed then
begged not to be quoted- “don’t quote me.” Then the video clip
surfaced everywhere – not from the mainstream media but from an
online TV platform. Whatever happened to the ethics of journalism?
The minister, horrified by the national outrage, shouted and many
others, especially respected journalists, raised their joint voice
for him. The minister, through an aide, felt hurt that an agreement
to keep the information “off the record” was breached. His verdict
was that the culprit deserved “the journalism equivalent of firing
squad” – that is, the person should be tied to the stake and shot –
like an armed robber or, even worse, like a coup plotter.
Now, I ask: Was everyone at that marketplace of a briefing a
journalist who was obligated to act by journalism rules and who
must hide his truthful audio and video clips in the soup pot of his
wife? Who really is a journalist by today’s realities? We forget
that this is 2018 – not 1998, the year of Sani Abacha when
information was a helpless, obedient child in the strong arms of
the professional newsman. The gates of the past have been
demolished by technology — never to be rebuilt. This is
post-ethics, even post-journalism era. The ‘untrained’ media horde
of this era have a more assertive view of this space and they see
no reason why information meals should be cooked at all before they
are served. And the salivating, insatiable public who can’t wait
appreciate them and their service. We are in a very dangerous era
in media and public relations practice — and we should know.

Alhaji Mohammed enjoys bonding with the media. The media enjoys
him too. And, truly, dealing with the media can be very rewarding;
but it can also be dangerous and career-threatening, especially if
you think you are on dry land, a terra firma, and can get anything
done with anyone and everyone. It happened to me: A reporter called
for my comments on a matter I did not want to be dragged into at
all, and because he was my friend, I thought I could de-formalise
the telephone interaction. I switched to Yoruba language and told
him: “Wo, Tunde, mi o si n’le” – (meaning, Look, Tunde, I am not at
home). The following day, to my horror, I read in his paper: “The
Chief Press Secretary, when contacted for his reaction said ‘Look,
I am not around.’” It was a life-long lesson learnt very
quickly.

So, with this N3.5m monthly meal video, I blame the newsmaker
who should have set the ground rules very well in advance. Why
would a government spokesman face rolling cameras at a press
conference, say something big and scandalous, then make after-the-
fact pleading: “please don’t quote me.” Is that how the rule works?
Should a newsmaker’s “off the record” demand maintain the “off”
part in all situations and contexts? And more fundamentally, is
“don’t quote me” the same as “off the record”? Is posting a video
of someone saying something exactly the same as quoting the person?
What does it mean to “quote” someone?

Where really is the “off the record” rule in all these? And what
does it mean? Media trainer, Brad Phillips, would insist that going
“off the record” (when you have the option of keeping sealed lips)
is a dumb idea. He adds that “off-the-record may be the single most
misunderstood journalism term you will ever encounter.” He says
that even journalists “can’t agree on what it means. If you speak
to ten different journalists, you will probably hear ten different
definitions.” And that was exactly what I saw online with respected
media personalities delivering judgements and counter judgements on
the rightness of the posting of the video and the justice of the
apology that followed from Oak TV – the poster.
If this were a legal issue, you can be sure that our robust and
dynamic jurisprudence would address it admirably – no matter how
long it takes. But this is about the media and its ethics. It is
also about public relations and its rules of engagement. I doubt if
there will ever be an agreement on who was right or wrong in this
‘expensive’ matter. But it throws a challenge at our media and
journalism schools to reinvent and retool themselves to fill
potholes being dug daily by the Internet on the expressway of
information management.

In any case, lessons must have been learnt by all of us,
including the grandmaster himself, Alhaji Lai Mohammed. If you want
to be off the record on a bit of information, you have the
obligation to declare it so in advance – invoke the ethical rule
before saying it – not after saying it as our minister did. More
importantly, not saying ‘that thing’ at all saves you of heartache.
If you are in public life, you should be very guided by the golden
rule: “If there’s a microphone around, then it is live.” It is
worse in this age of live streaming – words are literally eggs,
once they fall off the lips, the odious mess must glide to the
market square.

Dr. Lasisi Olagunju is an Editor and Columnist with
the Nigerian Tribune newspapers