Parable of mighty oaks in Oduahgate as a flaw in scandal
management
MEDIA
values to the society have been underscored in so many ways that it will amount
to flogging it if this piece would have to enlist samples. The end matter about
it, however, is that somebody’s ox is often gored as a resultant post-script to
the sector’s line of duty on daily basis, especially in a society with the
misfortune of credit for being replete with scandalous conducts.
In my years of service in news gathering
and reporting I have come to realize that scandal has grown to become essential
part of human schedule in freewill with which falsehoods is dominating our socio-economic
interactions in ubiquity. Without adequate data for supporting evidence, I hold
the hypothesis that every adult has a material of scandal lurking in a corner
of his wardrobe. The irony is that it remains, as a constituent of the elements
of that wardrobe, a legitimate dark spot of our life with residual presence in
the pit our heart. It only changes status to scandal when wind of fate
unsettles it place of rest to blow it into the open. This is the point a test
of man comes, as the ultimate end is determined more by how the resulting
crisis is managed.
More often, with factual evidence littering
the course of our nationhood, many scandals have consumed their principal out
of their failed efforts to justify the scandals with threat and blackmailing,
which often tempt to wrap a garb of imbecility around the blower or concerned
public. The tendency of course, is for the stakeholders to say: ‘look, we are
not stupid’. The matter then goes forth thence into a course of due process for
the establishment of facts about the scandal.
In this democratic dispensation alone, we have seen the Lawangate of
bribe security against indictment for fuel subsidy fraud involving Farouk
Lawan, the Adhoc Committee Chairman for Fuel Subsidy probe by the House of
Representatives, and Femi Otedola, an oil mogul in Nigeria. Of course, it is
now history that Lawan first denied that he demanded $66million bribe
from Otedola, adducing to blackmailing before he eventually owned up when
emerging material facts began to cease his voice.
Though still subsisting as scandal of the
year 2012 like the Lawangate is the Mainagate of Police Pension
Office probe involving N273billion. In senate probe of the activities of a
Pension Reform Task Force (PRTF), the Chairman of the body, Abdulrasheed Maina
was found indictable for mismanagement of this sum. Rather than honour the
invitation of the probing committee of the Senate, Maina resulted to theatrics
that eventually earned him a reprieve of an Abuja Federal High Court that quashed
the senate’s warrant of arrest imposed on him.
Of course, Maina is not yet cleared of this
scandal and I do not intend to say he his guilty as charged either. But I may
not need a pundit’s advice to know that a prima facie may exist against
him on account of his accomplice’ confession to the crime.
Found indictable in the Police Pension
Office probe along with Maina were John Yusuff, Atiku Kigo, et al. Yusuff had
since confessed to the crime of his N32billion share of the scam before a court
of competent jurisdiction. So where lies the fate of Maina in all this? It’s a
matter of time.
The most recent scandal of scam at stake is the Oduahgate involving
N225m. The Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah was alleged to have
given approval to a subordinate agency to her Ministry, National Civil Aviation
Authority (NCAA), to purchase for her personal use, two amour BMW limousines
at N127.5m each. The grounds of outcry and public rage against this were
morally and statutory bounds.
There were allegations that the price tag
was grossly inflated and concession for import duty waivers were fraudulently
obtained. In addition, the Minister was accused of approving the expenditure
sum that exceeded her approval limit (being N100million) within a budget year.
Since that renown online media, Sahara reporters, published to leak the story
with hard core fact early October this year, the first official reaction form
the NCAA had been a mix of feeble-laden defence aided with threat of arrest
against the whistle blower for criminal theft of information in line with the
convention of power abuse syndrome synonymous with Federal Government’s
connects.
As it stands today, however, the House of
Representative’s probe has since established 12 grounds of indictment against
Oduah. These include her technical supplication of righteousness in splitting
the cost in spread over two years to accommodate her approval limit for legal
bound.
All of these foregoing scandals are matters
of macro interests with insignificant bearing to our daily lives at the local
levels beyond a reference point to our dismally moral decay. We celebrate such
revelations with fanfare more as to be for enlistment into our records of
justification to cite for our bad deeds in our neighbourhoods. It is the error
of judgement we commit when we bother about the lion at far while feel
unconcerned about the viper at our heels.
What a scandal like the foregoing will establish
is a parable of Mighty Oaks regressing to a rejected spring over an allegations
rather than for substance of factual prove.
If there is an allegation, true of false,
that tends to diminish a Mighty Oak to the rumps of odourful spring, a reasonable
action form the guard well grounded in virtues of substance of fact is to apply
purpose of facts and facts of purpose to make statement that is pleasant and
full of substances to restore the glory of the Mighty Oaks. It is the language
of weakling to put threats before facts. And as a matter of fact, self defense
with material fact is always laden with imperative but subtle latent threat a
traducer could need for warning against mischief. This was the point a Lagos
based school missed when this Magazine sought to crosscheck the facts about an
allegation relating to the school being notorious for conducting West African
School Certificate Examinations (WAEC for short) under inhuman condition.
In the course of gathering materials of
stakeholders input into a scheduled cover story in the area of private school
education, this magazine stumbled upon reference to some schools in the habit
of conducting WAEC/NECO under canopies in the open sun. For being specific with
name mentioning by the source, we approached the school for clarifications in
line with standard ethics of balanced reportage. What we got in return from the
proprietress was a loathsome threats of police arrest to instituting a suit for
libel should the story get published.
The unfortunate thing was that the
proprietress lost all sense of decorum to assault our intelligence even with
twist of fact, at that instant, to accuse us of attempt to blackmail the
school. Worst of all, she seized a copy of our past edition – Lagos Ring of
Examination Malpractice – we held for introduction of the coming edition as
to be sequel to. The dialogue illustrate the scene better.
“I am not a member of NAPPS (National
Association of Proprietors of Private Schools) or any other association. Maybe
that’s why they want to pull down my school. God will judge the person doing
this. I am a member of the Redeem Church. I have two schools and there are two
halls: one in this school and one in the other. And I donate the one of other
school's to the church to use without a fee”. She began after briefings that
initiated the discussion..
“That makes a good defense madam. These are
just what we need…”, I tried to guide her right but she cut in.
“if you publish anything about the school, we will sue your media. My husband
is a lawyer with 20 years of practice at the Bar. In fact, he will like to meet
you one on one. He asked me to invite you”. she continued.
“Madam, can I go now because I have some
other appointments to keep. Can I get back my magazine”, I asked to fill the
pause in her talking.
“No, I will have to hold this magazine. In fact, you are not going with this
magazine”, she said bluntly.
This was the time I knew I could be in for
trouble and you never can tell what a woman like this could do at this time
under such anger. “Supposing she accuses me of being a kidnapper with a shout
for help, the mob lynching would have gone far before identity clarification
could be possible -- that is if I am lucky to survive it”, I though with
comportment that hid this fear.
“Does that mean you intend to detain me here
till your husband comes; against my will?” I asked.
“No, my husband doesn’t come here everyday, you can ask anybody here. But he
would like to see this magazine” she replied.
“Do you know all these your conducts amount
to threats. Look, let your husband be with the IG (Inspector General of Police)
and give a me call for an invitation to his presence, I will come. So why all
this fury?” I queried
“We would like to know who gave you this
information…” She interjected.
“Good that you are coming clean with your
interest. Your husband as a lawyer knows this is not possible even at the point
of (putting the edge of my perm to denote) killing”, I said with restraints
that checked my anger.
“It
won't get to that, she said and followed up with tutelage of quack journalism
for me “But when you heard this, you suppose to come here like a parent seeking inquiries. You ask to see the facilities of the school and you will know the
truth”.
“So what are we here for now, when we told
you to give your side of the story? I asked
“You have come to blackmail us. We don’t do exam malpractice here. And during
the examinations, the WAEC officials, the Ministry officials go round to
inspect schools; even the head of WAEC at Ogba (name mentioned withheld) know
us. They have never found anything against us", she said
"But in all honesty Madam, have we made mention of any examination
malpractice thus far in this discussion? I asked
“And sometimes", she continued as her
choice of answer to this, "your staff had been here to seek our adverts in
your magazine and we have been planning to do this. A school that relies on
examination malpractice will not bother to do advert”, She explained.
“Well, you have made your point madam. It’s
very clear you are not appreciating our efforts. Can I get back my magazine
now?” I asked with finality.
She
stood up at this point with the excuse that she was going to do the photocopy
of the magazine pages. She returned after several minutes of delay only to put
me on phone call to her 'husband'. Thence another round of threat began, but
with sense of honour this time -- A factor of gender superiority at work, you
may say..
“I am a lawyer with 20 years post-call at
the bar. I am a Pastor in the Redeem Church. I established this school for my
wife. If you publish the story, I will bring the Police to arrest you first,
then I will sue you and your company”, the voice on the other end said.
After explaining the purpose of our visit,
which the ‘husband’ acknowledged, he said we should be allowed to see the
school hall and other facilities. But, to date, we were never allowed to see
any hall or other facilities of the school. In the discussion with the husband,
he claimed ‘though’ he was ‘planning to put a shade canopy in the compound soon
where the children could play table tennis’, the aggressive proprietress had
earlier tried to justify that the compound could not contain a canopy. This
claim was at best a glairing falsehood as the frontage of the school premises
will contain one large size and one medium size canopy conveniently. This
nevertheless presupposes the allegation to be true in any way, but it could add
up to circumstantial evidences when needful.
The
import of this is to make meaningful deductions from this for the public
interests. The first is: what was the basis of flaunting the proprietors’ legal
profession as a lawyer, as if being a lawyer confers a natural right to
lawlessness or engagement in conducts of social vices. Besides, the threat must
have come out of impression that the photograph of the scene of examinations
under canopy could hardly exist, that is assuming they felt being caught
unawares. So, granted that this is a fact, the purpose of court trial is the
examination of the parties to a case for matters of apriori and possible
inferences. To present 200 candidates by a school having a hall of 100 sitting
capacity is a circumstantial evidence that a court may not overlook.
Thus it rather would have done the school a good note if it had showcased the
fact of the school's facilities than result to threats, which in other
considerations, speaks of the danger journalists and media houses face in their
line of duties. The threat could have been brutal assaults in another clime.
Coming back to the macro case studies in
sense of using substance of fact to defend an allegation, I will cite two more
cases to justify that when threat is advanced against an allegation before
factual defence, it often connotes, foremost, an hypothesis of some elements of
truth in the allegation.
The cases of Bode George’s eventual 2 years imprisonment and Barr Kunle
Kalejaiye's Saga in the Justice Thomas Naron’s Scandal are well pronounced on
this. When a news magazine published the filths of Bode George’s mismanagement
of N85billion of Nigerian Port Authority (NPA’s) fund, his first reaction was a
threat to sue for libel. Keeping to his threat he instituted the suit right.
But when interrogation caused questions to jam questions during trials, fact
surfaced and EFCC took over. The end was an added title of ex-convict to his
profile.
Justice Thomas Naron has since been
convicted with suspension by the National Judicial Council (NJC) for his role
in the underground mobile phone interaction with a lawyer, the Kunle Kalejaiye,
in the case of Osun State First Election Tribunal involving Olagunsoye Oyinlola
and Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola. Kalejeiye first threatened to sue TheNews
Magazine for publishing the story and the evidential call logs. He soon lost
the liver to do so when he saw the case of Bode George.
To the school in question, the message is that we fear no foe; and
neither the school is a foe to us, as I assured the the husband. But press gag
with threat! we say NO! Rather we seek
your cooperation in a cause for a new orientation for a merit driven society.
This is just one in many ways to skin a cat.
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