By Abdulrahaman Sade
We are not talking about the concoction by European bar tenders that is called “Double-Dutch” which has high hallucinogenic capacity. A double Dutch in this context is a lesson in which real responsibility is shirked, leading, of course to high hallucinogenic power display.
The tirade by the governor of Katsina state last week, in which he lambasted the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN, particularly its current Director-General, Malam Ladan Salihu, for bias and unprofessional coverage of the activities of the opponents of the PDP in the 2011 elections can be classified as a Double Dutch trip by anyone who understands the meaning of responsibility, especially among journalists.
The governor of Katsina state is no less a political figure than the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, once the number four figure in this Federal Republic of more than 160 million people. When Hon Aminu Masari occupied that office, he was in the People’s Democratic Party PDP, the behemoth, which had overwhelming majority in both houses of parliament. At the time, with little effort the parliamentarians of the PDP could legislate their motions and bills without as much as a whimper from the opposition which dwelt in a take-it-or-leave-it zone.
And one bill which would have empowered journalists and deepened democracy would have been the one that secures the jobs of the chief executives of the nation’s media houses unless they exhibit a conduct that contravene professional ethics or human rights.
A look at the Freedom of Information Bill which took more than a decade to pass in Nigeria is an ugly scar on Nigeria’s body politic. Freedom of information, specifically access to information held by public authorities is a fundamental element of the right to freedom of expression and vital to the proper functioning of a democracy. Enshrined in it is a compulsion on the disclosure of information held by public authorities or by persons providing services for them. It gives the right to ask any public body for all the information at their disposal on any subject. But the legislature bucked on this matter endlessly always hiding behind one excuse or another.
This Bill, ordinarily would have served as an impetus for the accompanying encumbrances that border on equitable access to media organs in the country whether one is in government or in the opposition. But when legislators cohabit with the ruling party, they forget that power is transient and ignore the imbalances in access to the accoutrements of power that they might one day be deprived to use.
Aminu Bello Masari was Speaker of the House between 2003 and 2007 and in all those years he did not find it expedient to ensure that what belongs to Caesar is given to Caesar until in 2011 when the bill was passed under the administration of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.
That was the year when Aminu Bello Masari unsuccessfully sought the office of Governor of Katsina state under the banner of the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, one of the legacy parties to metamorphose into the APC today. At the time, Malam Ladan Salihu who the governor is accusing of unfairness in the provision of access to the media was only a zonal Director of the FRCN, while Hon Aminu Masari’s bossom friend Yusuf Nuhu was the Director General, on whose table the buck stops.
Knowing the honor and dignity of Masari and the maturity with which he handled the business of the House of Reps, I fear that the statement credited to him on the manner of the FRCN may either be jaundiced, misapplied or both – a Double Dutch trip. No one is in a position to accuse the governor of vendetta against Chief Executives of the Federal Government owned media because of their conduct, as the governor is currently enjoying the full complement of the same bias both in his state and in the federal media outfits as they are currently constituted.
Governor Aminu Masari’s opposite number is currently domiciled in London. He is John Whittingdale Britain’s new culture secretary. Whittingdale has always been highly critical of the BBC and produced a string of reports slamming the BBC as chair of the influential House of Common’s culture select committee. Today, Whittingdale is expected to set out a range of proposed reforms in his green paper on Thursday, among them the scrapping of popular shows and the replacement of the licence fee at the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC. This action if allowed to fester would diminish the global broadcaster.
So, in an open letter to Downing Street, more than two dozen national figures from the world of arts and entertainment claim that “a diminished BBC would simply mean a diminished Britain”. They argued that government and the BBC are entering the Charter Review, and are writing to place on record at the very start of the process their concern that nothing should be done to diminish the BBC or turn it into a narrowly focused market-failure broadcaster”.
To all intent and purposes, that is what Masari would have loved to see become of the FRCN and not a market failure broadcaster, to borrow the words of the two dozen saviours of the BBC, which the FRCN had become by not accepting adverts from opposition politicians back then in 2011.
Radio, everybody agrees is the strangers first contact with his new environment.
So the quest for professionalism in that department can never be over-emphasized. And it is undeniable that the race for radio coverage by politicians, local and national reaches its hilt during electioneering campaigns. So it is only natural that those who superintend over such outfits are likely to superimpose their imprimatur in order to occupy pole position. That in itself does not, technically, constitute foul play on the part of the sitting government. But it gives them an unfair advantage which only be addressed if the people in power decide in the spirit of change to spare the civil servant who is only doing his employers bidding and instead attack the policy, once and for all.
I am sure the Jagaban Borgu, Bola Ahmed Tinubu would be wondering what to do with his fellow Yorubaman, Mr. Shola Omole of the Nigeria Television Authority, NTA, who in spite of his professionalism allowed the Jonathan administration to run the documentary that it did on the “Lion of Bourdillon”, his kinsman. But that is his calling, not his desire.
So also, Ladan Salihu’s infractions against the CPC in 2011 were more the decision of his employers, not his own. Indeed, it is too early to forget the magnanimity of President Muhammadu Buhari, who quickly readmitted African Independent Television into the presidential team despite their open bias against him during the 2015 electioneering period. That singular action was not only presidential, it was a clear sign that change is finally in the air. In the past Buhari would have simply muzzled the press. Today he replicates the maxim that two wrongs do not make a right.
But here is what to do to remedy the situation. Being one of the governors whose citizens populate the seat of power and being the governor of the president’s state, Masari will do well to influence the enactment of a law to safeguard the jobs of all chief executives of government media throughout the country by ensuring that they are allowed a free hand to operate without interference from above, in a convivial manner that does not also impede their financial obligation from government. If this is done, Media executives will have no explanation for bias against the opposition. This is the only solution in which justice and fairplay would be seen to constitute the hallmark of the much anticipated “Change” that we are witnessing.
Sade wrote from Abuja