By Festus Adedayo
One error made by the public is to see these erstwhile media practitioners in the same mould as when they were active in the profession.

In the tiff between Onanuga and Alake on one side and Obaigbena on the other, the ordinary people of Nigeria are not in their consideration at all. It is the warlords’ bellies, businesses, political principals and their projected
To many, the recent virulent attacks and counter-attacks of each other by top Nigerian journalists, served a la carte to the world in the last two weeks, are indications of an autumn of journalism practice in Nigeria. Nigerians have thus been treated to a disgraceful brew of damaging and ignoble exchanges from these media warlords. The public spat has made Nigerians to call the integrity of their media practitioners to question. To them, the media space, in the name of politics, has become a hostile jungle, revealing the patent biases of its practitioners in the coverage of society.
Three warlords are at the centre of this spat. They are, Bayo Onanuga, Dele Alake and Nduka Obaigbena. Except for Obaigbena, publisher of the ThisDay newspaper, whose current political leaning is a subject of intense guess-work, the other two have apparently gone to Thessalonica. As biblical Paul awaited execution, he lamented how Demas, his friend and associate, had forsaken him “because he loves the things of this life and has gone to Thessalonica.” Thessalonica signifies the world of perfidy. Judging by its abhorrence of partisanship, the journalism profession seems to be shawled in lamentations today at the apostasy of these barons “because (they love) the things of this life.”
To be fair to both Alake and Onanuga, they possess lofty pedigrees of media practice. After graduating in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos in 1980, Onanuga worked with the Ogun State Television, where he began practice. He moved to The Guardian and thereafter to the National Concord and African Concord magazine, before finally founding TheNEWS magazine and TEMPO, as well as P.M. News. In 2014, Onanuga opted to contest the Ogun East district senatorial ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC), an ambition which got botched. He thereafter became the Director General of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Alake’s media foray is not totally dissimilar from Onanuga’s. After a degree in Political Science from the University of Lagos and an internship with the Ogun State Broadcasting Corporation (OGBC), he joined the Lagos State Broadcasting Corporation (LSBC) as Senior Sub-Editor but in 1985 joined business mogul, MKO Abiola’s Concord Group of Newspapers wherein, in 1989, he was appointed editor of Sunday Concord and in 1995, editor of the National Concord. He held this post till June 1999 when the then governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu, appointed him Information Commissioner. Since then, Alake has literally gone to Thessalonica, away from journalism. He is implicated in virtually every sub-media construction, deconstruction and misconstruction of the Tinubu perspective in the Nigerian media. In 2010, Alake also made an attempt to contest the senatorial seat of his home state, Ekiti’s Central District but retreated in the heat of defeat staring him in the face. Onanuga and Alake are today major sharks in the Tinubu media ocean in his bid to clinch the Nigerian presidency in the 2023 election, having been appointed the Director of Media and Publicity and Director, Strategic Communication of the APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) respectively.
The two have escalated their defence of public angst and disgust at their principal, Tinubu’s peremptory gaffes at public events, locating these gaffes at the doorsteps of a claimed disaffection that Obaigbena and his media group have for Tinubu. While the gaffes and speech incoherence have made many to submit that Tinubu either lacks the mythical depth attributed to him by his lieutenants over the years or is suffering from an unnamed mental disconnect, Onanuga and Alake have pursued the narrative that Tinubu is neither of both. Obaigbena’s group has however doubled down, in an overarching manner, on the need for the public scrutiny of both claims.
Two journalists in the Obaigbena Arise Television group – highly respected Reuben Abati and Oseni Rufai – have been held as culprits by the Tinubu group. Common sense should have dictated that the path to walk was to address the fears that Tinubu, if elected, would be a worse replica of Nigeria’s current infirmary-bound president. This view, if they care to investigate, is ten-a-dime on Nigerian streets. Rather, Onanuga and Alake have sought to make a victim of Tinubu, insisting that the Arise group’s invitation to him to attend a Town Hall debate it organised was designed to “embarrass” him. The result is that both Onanuga and Alake have gone very low in their pursuit of this mindset. This they have done by dwelling on what they claim is Obaigbena’s crooked media dealings. They have since vowed never to make available their candidate to validate a scheme which they said, “in the light of unassailable information at our disposal,” is nothing but “a racket by the Arise TV owner, designed to embarrass our candidate.”
One error made by the public is to see these erstwhile media practitioners in the same mould as when they were active in the profession. These are persons who have now entered into liaisons with politically exposed persons. Yoruba call this the horrific error of viewing the dead in the same way as they were when alive. The punishment for this error, the Yoruba say, is a call on the gnome – the Ebora – to de-robe such ignoramuses.
Apart from their gambit to criminalise scrutiny into Tinubu’s past and any demand for him to attend any presidential debate, Onanuga and Alake’s plan is to make Obaigbena, Abati, Oseni and their ThisDay newspaper and Arise TV worthless to the public, giving them the Dan Rather treatment before the 2023 election. Rather, a CBS News icon in September 2004, fell on the basis of his foibles. A few months to the presidential election of that year, he had commented on some documents that were critical of President George Bush’s Air National Guard service. Within minutes, Bush’s internet bloggers went into action and proved that the documents presented by Rather were forged. Rather’s thirty-three-year-long career on CBS came crashing and his worth was thus reduced to the basest level.
In response to Arise’s demand of satisfactory answers to the circumstances surrounding the forfeiture of funds to the US government by Tinubu in an alleged Chicago drug dealing, Onanuga and Alake went down the abyss of argumentative fallacies. They regurgitated irrelevant traits alleged to be their opponents’ and attacked personal matters. For instance, they claimed that the ThisDay founder owes taxes abroad and is a slave driver. While I am yet to know whether their principal’s media house is free of these charges, I submit that these are different and irrelevant matters entirely to the riveting allegation that is expected of them to defend.
The truth is that the Nigerian public is wary of an impending inclination to elect a drug peddler as president and they need answers to queries on Tinubu. What to do, I think, is to offer documentary, unassailable evidence of Tinubu being above board. But as it is known with ad hominine arguments, Onanuga and Alake chose to zero in on the person of their victims. Again, they committed what is called the strawman fallacy in arguments, whereby rather than provide irrefutable evidence that Tinubu didn’t do drugs, they brought out a third party, Buruji Kashamu, who became their referent, and his association with Abati, as an apt response to the Chicago drug allegation. Is Abati running for the Nigerian presidency? Is association immoral, criminal or both? So, if every association is immoral, how does one rate their own affiliation with Tinubu? Does it make them guilty of all the moral/criminal drawbacks that Tinubu has been alleged to be complicit of?
One error made by the public is to see these erstwhile media practitioners in the same mould as when they were active in the profession. These are persons who have now entered into liaisons with politically exposed persons. Yoruba call this the horrific error of viewing the dead in the same way as they were when alive. The punishment for this error, the Yoruba say, is a call on the gnome – the Ebora – to de-robe such ignoramuses. It is thus a great blunder to refer to the three main musketeers at the centre of the debate on the role of the media in these shameful exchanges as journalists. Dog tenderers know that the moment a dog tastes blood, it is ripe to be excised from tame animals. Onanuga, Alake and Obaigbena can no longer be referred to as journalists in the true sense of the term. Judging by their current preoccupation, they can conveniently be referred to as merchants of news, who merchandise and have a consumeric relationship with news and journalism. At the least, they are journal-preneurs, if there is anything so called.
I have always maintained that the moment a journalist, columnist or even an activist, bails out of active practice and mingles with politicians, they, most times, lose their erstwhile objectivity. The people, who used to be their constituency, are substituted for the politically exposed persons who are now their employers. In this wise, it would be tantamount to waiting for Godot for society to expect such erstwhile media practitioners to work in preference of the people, at the expense of their principals.
In the tiff between Onanuga and Alake on one side and Obaigbena on the other, the ordinary people of Nigeria are not in their consideration at all. It is the warlords’ bellies, businesses, political principals and their projected political positions in the federal government that are at issue. So when Nigerians now obfuscate the issues as if the practice of journalism is on parade and is implicated, it beats me hollow. Where they are today is comparable to that of a vulture which sees carcass from a purely gourmet point-of-view and not as a dying creation. The exchanges that Nigerians read from these people are epistles of the gourmand.
Arise TV and ThisDay group must also proceed from zeroing in on Tinubu alone into grilling Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi as well. We need to ask Abubakar questions about scandals that rocked his time in office. In 2007, The Guardian of London reported that senators accused Abubakar, then sitting vice president, of diverting more than $100 million (£51 million) of public funds into companies he was connected to.
As is the allegation that Onanuga and Alake leveled against Obaigbena, most media houses in Nigeria and even in other democracies of the world, are explicitly linked to particular politicians. These politicians are their friends and associates. To many others, due to economic interests and political association or affiliation of their publishers or owners, they are forced to trade in politically tainted views. In the process, news and opinions reflect those political interests, leanings and loyalties, and facts are relegated to the background.
In a chapter in a book entitled Reflections on a decade of democratization in Nigeria (2010), a project of the German Friedrich Ebert-Stiftung Foundation, edited by Professor Lai Olurode, which we entitled “A decade of democratization: The Nigerian press and ethno-proprietorial influences”, authored by Professor Adigun Agbaje and I, we submitted that the Nigerian media has always been a battleground of interests. We looked at how the Nigerian press of the First Republic was not blameless in the fall of the First and Second Republic Nigeria and how journalists, pandering to proprietorial, financial and ethnic interests have, since the advent of the Fourth Republic, been tossing Nigeria right, left and centre.
The strategy of shielding candidates from public scrutiny, which Alake and his PCC are attempting, was the same path they trod with Buhari as presidential candidate. Buhari’s health and depth limitations were shielded from the Nigerian public, through all manners of shenanigans, by Alake as Media Director in the Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organisation in 2014, in company of his colleagues. Nigerians will be making another huge mistake if they allow a reactivation and effectuation of the same strategy. It only led us to the Buhari doom. As such, if Alake and Onanuga feel that the Arise TV of Obaigbena are attempting to embarrass Tinubu – which is a valid fear – let them bring their principal to TVC, which is public knowledge that he owns, for an organised debate. The debate must however be coordinated by respected Nigerians as anchors. Tinubu must answer critical enquiries that will help voters evaluate his mental depth, cohesion of thought and ability to govern Nigeria. Nigerians must refuse to be cowed by Onanuga and Alake.
Arise TV and ThisDay group must also proceed from zeroing in on Tinubu alone into grilling Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi as well. We need to ask Abubakar questions about scandals that rocked his time in office. In 2007, The Guardian of London reported that senators accused Abubakar, then sitting vice president, of diverting more than $100 million (£51 million) of public funds into companies he was connected to. His boss, President Oluesgun Obasanjo, was said to have petitioned the Senate. A Senate inquiry, according to the newspaper, recommended that Abubakar should be prosecuted. The reply of Abubakar office then was that “the legislative body should not allow its name to be dragged into the mud by a few members who may be pursuing their own hidden agenda”.
A plethora of other allegations, especially one flowing from William Jefferson and the Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF) scandal, which involved Atiku Abubakar and Obasanjo, must also be totally explained. Despite the Senate indicting him and Obasanjo on the PTDF scandal, no action has been taken against them since 2007. It should be same for Peter Obi. Allegations of any fraud connected to him must be brought to the public space and he must be made to answer them. These two too must be brought to the open by the Arise/ThisDay group and indeed on any Nigerian media platform. We cannot afford to have a country presided over by malefactors and journal-preneurs in Thessalonica who are prescribing and imposing on us their own brand of the Nigerian moral code.
Festus Adedayo is an Ibadan-based journalist.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER NOW
Support MATAZ ARISING’ journalism of integrity and credibility.
Good journalism ensure the possibility of a good society, an accountable democracy, and a transparent government.
We ask you to consider making a modest support to this noble endeavour.
TEXT AD: To advertise here – Email ad@matazarising.com
LATEST POSTS
Nigerian asylum seeker is stabbed to death in ‘barbaric’ attack just off Dublin’s main shopping street – as concerns over knife crime in capital spread
MaTaZ ArIsInGDallas, Texas A Nigerian asylum seeker was stabbed to death in a ‘barbaric’ attack just off Dublin’s main shopping street, as concerns over knife violence in the Irish capital spread. Quham Babatunde, 34, a Nigerian national, had reportedly been attending an Afroswing gig at a nightclub in the Irish capital the evening of the…
New Lagos Speaker ‘Under Pressure’ To Resign As Lawmakers Protest DSS Invasion
MaTaZ ArIsInGDallas, Texas The Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mojisola Meranda, is reportedly facing intense pressure to resign, with sources indicating that she may step down this Monday. The development came after the operatives of the Department of State Service (DSS) and other armed security personnel stormed the premises of the Assembly…
USAID: Ndume urges probe of B’Haram funding
MaTaZ ArIsInGDallas, Texas Former Senate Chief Whip, Senator Ali Ndume, has called on the Federal Government and the National Assembly to investigate allegations by U.S. Congressman Scott Perry that the United States Agency for International Development has been funding terrorist organisations, including Boko Haram. Ndume made the appeal during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics…