What is patriotism? The definition should be fairly
straightforward: loving your country. One of my favourite all-time
tunes is the 1988 song, “Nation and the People”, by The Mandators,
with the refrain: “Love your country/Your nation and the people”.
They sang passionately: “Some are trying to find solutions to all
the problems we have/Some are trying to make it impossible for the
problems to be solved.” The song progresses deeper philosophically:
“Must you sell your father’s land for the love of this vanity now?”
If I were to start a civic club for secondary school students in
the country, this song would be the anthem. It is an immortal call
to patriotism.
If patriotism were that simple to define, why should anyone
doubt the loyalty of a journalist to his country when he warns that
there is danger ahead and demands that the government should act
swiftly and decisively to prevent a calamity? Having grown up and
started my journalism career under military regimes in Nigeria, I
got the impression at some point in my life that “patriotism” means
to “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”. That is, turn a
blind eye to official impropriety. Journalists who report failings
in the system are branded as “unpatriotic” by the state and marked
for persecution. Till today, this official mindset has not
changed.
I am bringing up the topic of “journalism and patriotism” today
because of recent events in the land, particularly the resurgence
of Boko Haram and the other security challenges. They are, again,
highlighting the constant battles we journalists fight in the line
of duty: the blackmail and the intimidation we have to deal with
from the authorities, who hide under their nebulous definition of
“patriotism”. The criteria are so narrow you are forced to wonder
what exactly the role of a journalist should be. Is the journalist
a thermometer — telling the society its “temperature” — or a
thermostat — regulating the “temperature”? We must keep having this
debate.
As an aside, I had an amusing experience recently. Sometime in
2017, a whopping fine of $6.5 billion plus $2.3 billion in
interests was slammed on Nigeria by an arbitration tribunal in
London, UK, in the case brought by P&ID over an alleged breach
of contract. Immediately the news broke, I put my team at TheCable,
the online newspaper I founded in 2014, on the alert. I asked them
to dig up the details and draw out the implications “in the
national interest”. The young guys got down to work. What they
found out was disheartening: Nigeria had been handling the case
nonchalantly. If we did not take critical steps, our foreign assets
— forex reserves not excluded — would be jeopardised.
Personally, I was very disturbed. So I adopted a two-pronged
approach: on the one hand, I got TheCable team to stay on the
story, highlighting the implications and alerting the government
and Nigerians to the looming danger; on the other hand, I leveraged
on my contacts in government to push for urgent action because it
appeared nobody was really worried about the case. Early this year,
I spoke with the key government people I had access to, warning
them that there was fire on the mountain and we must do everything
to quench it, even if it meant sitting down with the P&ID guys
to work out a much reasonable settlement. To me, $9.6 billion was
murderous.
I would, on a good day, define that as “patriotism” if I was
writing a dictionary. But you know what? In the last four weeks, at
least three senior government officials have told me I have been
classified as a “P&ID consultant”. They said I am “unpatriotic”
because of the series of articles we did on the case. In my
naivety, I thought the “unpatriotic” people were those who signed
that kind of contract, those who failed to defend the country
properly in the arbitration, and those did not apply for a review
of the award within the 60-day grace in 2017. I didn’t know it was
the person running around for a solution without collecting one
kobo that would be classified as “unpatriotic”. So it goes.
As a journalist and columnist, I face all kinds of insults,
accusations, blackmail and intimidation all the time. I consider
them as part of the terms and conditions. If you can’t stand the
heat, former US President Harry S. Truman said, get out of the
kitchen. Nonetheless, only God knows how many people have been
framed up, humiliated or harmed in this country based on spurious
security reports, cheap conjectures and irrational suspicion. The
danger, I should think, is that the feeble-minded will be coerced
to “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”. In fact, those with
strong patriotic instincts will be forced at some point to ask
themselves: “Who patriotism epp?”
Now, to the main focus today: how should the media report the
Boko Haram resurgence? Despite claims that the terror group has
been “degraded” or “technically defeated”, the reality is that we
are still in trouble. Even President Muhammadu Buhari recently said
Boko Haram acquires sophisticated weapons “with ease”. As
journalists, are we supposed to continue to report only the
victories recorded by the military and black out the blind sides?
Is that patriotism? Would we really be helping our country? Can
living in denial — as we are expected to do — solve any problem?
No. It can only endanger us all. Returning the issue to the front
burner is very critical. That’s patriotism.
I have a story to tell. Sometime in 2014, I was invited as a
panellist to the Chief of Defence Staff Conference in Abuja. Air
Chief Marshall Alex Badeh (late), then chief of defence staff, was
there, with Air Marshall Adesola Amosu, then chief of air staff, Mr
MD Abubakar, then inspector-general of police, and several other
top security chiefs. I was not the lead speaker; I was just a
discussant. But as soon as the officers realised I was a
journalist, good God, they feasted on me like a hungry lion on
bleeding meat. They did not even bother to ask the lead speaker any
questions. All questions were directed at me. That day, I bore all
the sins of Nigerian journalists. I was a sorry sight.
What was the issue? One military officer after the other said
Nigerian journalists were “unpatriotic” because of the reports
coming from the warfront in the north-east. They said we were
enemies of Nigeria. The military was winning the war, they said,
but we were painting a different picture to Nigerians. At gunpoint,
I still raised the issue of the welfare of soldiers: how they were
eating cold lunch and sour dinner, how they were being given only
three sachets of pure water per day in the hellish heat of
Maiduguri, how they had no sleeping kits and how they were
battle-weary and suffering from PTSD — in addition to poor
equipment to confront the more sophisticated insurgents.
The way the officers dismissed the issues put the fear of God in
me afresh. One service chief said: “There is nothing wrong with the
soldiers sacrificing a little comfort in war front… we did not send
them there to be eating fried eggs and baked beans.” When he left
office, he was arranged in court by the EFCC for an alleged fraud
running into billions — the money meant for the soldiers welfare.
He was preaching sacrifice at the conference! Another chief was
said to have helped himself with billions while our soldiers were
being killed like rats. Boko Haram soon overran three states and
starting attacking Abuja and Kano with ease. We were supposed to
report that all was well.
The question is: who is unpatriotic? Is it the journalists that
were reporting the true situation in the north-east or the security
chiefs that were lying to their commander-in-chief while diverting
funds meant for operation? In their warped definition, the security
chiefs were the “patriots” for painting a false picture — while the
saboteurs/traitors were the journalists who reported that a false
picture was being painted. General Martin Agwai, former chief of
defence staff, came to my rescue that day. He said having spent 37
years in uniform and lived as a civilian for five years then, he
could empathise with both sides. It is not simple black and white,
he said. I started breathing again.
Before Agwai intervention, the police chief had accused Nigerian
journalists of not putting the country first. He said he was in
Atlanta, where CNN is based, shortly before the conference. He said
robbery goes on in Atlanta but CNN will not report it. Of course,
he was incorrect. I watch CNN regularly and they report robbery,
murder and mass shooting. BBC reports knife attacks in London and
rolls out latest murder statistics. By his logic, we should not be
reporting the cases of kidnappings in the country. We should
pretend everywhere is safe so that many more Nigerians will walk
into the hands of the kidnappers! Is that patriotism? We need to
seriously debate this.
In the final analysis, I would argue that journalists should
serve the cause of patriotism — but not as defined by the state
actors. There is a space for responsibility and restrain, no doubt;
in fact, there are situations that require a journalist to be both
a thermometer and a thermostat. It is not black or white. You can
accuse Nigerian journalists of being sensational and insensitive at
times and that would be in order, but that is a topic for another
day. It is patriotism we are discussing here. Certainly, a
journalist’s perspective may never be acceptable to state actors.
Painting a false picture, or hiding the real picture, can end up
hurting the country. That cannot be patriotism — for sure.
AND FOUR OTHER THINGS…
THUMBS UP
Police have arrested Gracious David West, the alleged serial killer
in Port Harcourt, Rivers state, reported to have killed seven young
women in different hotels over two months. Their bodies were found
in similar conditions: strangled, with a white piece of cloth tied
around their necks. Thumbs up to the police for this all-important
arrest! Look at the way they also traced and arrested Hamisu Bala,
aka Wadume, the suspected Taraba kidnap kingpin, after he was
reportedly freed by soldiers. All the positive news from the police
further confirms my pet theory: that if we really want to do things
right in this country, we can. We don’t need to import a single
talent to help us. Hope.
ADVISERS NOT ENFORCERS
I have never seen a set of appointments by President Buhari being
publicly hailed as the ones into the newly formed Economic Advisory
Council (EAC). In a different context, the Buhari cabinet could
have benefited tremendously from having these eminent economists as
ministers. We must all remember, however, that this is an advisory
council and they can only advise, or offer advice, to the
president. Advice means advice. Nobody in the world is bound by
anybody’s advice. It is, therefore, good to temper our
expectations. EAC will offer technical advice but, as we all know,
we also operate within socio-political realities. Buhari will bear
the brunt, not EAC members. Realpolitik.
N400M QUESTION
I’m not sure many Nigerians are paying attention to the ongoing
trial of Major General Hakeem Otiki, the GOC of army’s 8 division,
Sokoto. Five soldiers were declared wanted by the Nigerian army
after they allegedly absconded with N400 million cash belonging to
an unnamed VIP. Otiki was accused of being complicit — although he
has in turn protested that Lt General Lamidi Adeosun cannot preside
over his court martial because of conflict of interest. I am not
even interested in that. The question I have not been able to purge
from my brains is: who is the owner of the N400 million cash? Who
in the world were the soldiers moving the cash for? Who, please?
Who?
FIGHTING BACK
The Nigerian government, having handled the P&ID case with
levity for so long until the $9.6 billion looked like becoming a
reality, has become more aggressive and has launched legal battles
to prove that the gas project was a fraud from the beginning. On
Thursday, some directors of P&ID Nigeria were arraigned by the
EFCC before a federal high court in Abuja. They pleaded guilty to
money laundering and economic sabotage and were summarily
convicted. P&ID Nigeria was also liquidated. On this evidence,
the federal government hopes to convince the appeal court in the UK
to set aside the award because the contract itself was fraudulent
from day one. Watching.