Nigeria’s presidential race has kicked off, but not yet with expected pomp and ceremony; or, colourful characters many had thought would be falling over themselves for frontline positions.
Last week, a publisher, Sam Nda-Isaiah, threw his hat in the ring, but not much is known about him, except that he has been a columnist for the Daily Trust and lately his own Leadership newspaper, where it appears all his views are published without any sense or modicum of respect for sacred facts.
There have been speculations that in his present sojourn around the newspapers, he has been playing the “namu namu ne” or “tinwa n tinwa” (I am one of your own) card to get his colleagues on his side. But before this card fools the journalists they should find out what has happened or still happens to their colleagues who worked or still work for him.
A rabid critic of any government in power, Nda-Isaiah, does not appear, to a cursory reader, as one with the required temper to run a newspaper talk less of a ward in a local government area.
On a visit to the The Nation newspaper, he said Jonathan was pursuing the battle against Boko Haram because the insurgents are operating in an area (the Northeast) where “he thinks he cannot win election.” But did Jonathan win in the North East in the last elections?
The publisher of a newspaper does not know that the government has jailed anyone as he told The Nation journalists: “Why have they not been able to jail a single person? Tell me one known name they have caught?” he asked them ignorantly.
But, at least, he knows that the Boko Haram bombers are not Nigerians as he said that “It is obvious these persons are not Nigerians because no Nigerian will want to go and bomb a market when he is not sure if his relatives will be there… So, if many of them are from Chad and Niger Republic, how come they so easily operate in Nigeria? It is clear that they do not want to stop it.”
On his road show through newspaper houses in Lagos, Nda-Isaiah, giving an insight into his depth or lack of it told The Guardian: “While some people are enjoying; some are suffering. If a country is divided, there cannot be any growth. This is so bad that a bishop was sent to one of the states last year and they said, no, he is not from our village. At the governors’ forum, we have two of them; we have different factions of PDP and we are hearing that some people want to form a new APC. I even learnt that it was even the president that
wants the election timetable to be in place this week; though I have no proof. If that is true, it means that the president does not even trust the governors that are saying they are loyal to him.”
A publisher with reporters in his employ does not know there is no faction in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), even if he may be right that news has filtered to him and others that a faction is on its way in the APC. He also shares an unsubstantiated rumour that it was the president that asked for the election timetable to be in place this
week (last week). What kind of publisher is this, who wants to be president and cannot get his facts straight?
And wanting to appeal to sentiments of journalists, he adds: “We are writers; we have written everything but yet no changes. I believe that the only place we can make the changes that we need is at the Presidency. And besides, I am not looking for a job. I have a good job and one that I also enjoy doing.”
Perhaps the only truth the publisher told of his party, the APC, was where he admitted disunity within its ranks, worsened by the entry of the G-5 governors from the PDP.
Perhaps anyone who loves Nda-Isaiah should tell him to restrict himself to what has made him wealthy beyond his dreams – his brand of journalism where there are no political or traditional leaders to be respected if they do not play ball.
Talking about his brand of journalism brings to mind a sore editorial matter published by the Yobe State Government, under the watch of Governor Ibrahim Geidam, which described the publisher last year as a conman using journalism to extort money from people.
In the sponsored publication by the Special Adviser (Media) to the governor, Bego Abdullahi, the Yobe government said: “He has committed grave ethical infractions that strike at the very core of the integrity of journalism. The publisher has decided on a deliberate editorial policy to fabricate lies against us, ridicule our institutions, pillory our achievements and maliciously libel our functionaries all because we refused to yield to his unceasing demand for advertisement patronage. Recently, he has invested enormous editorial energies to malign and lie against the government and people of Yobe state – he is likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.” (see page 2 of Daily Trust of Wednesday, February 27, 2013)
Geidam was not the first to make allegations of this type against the
publisher and others like him. In the circumstance of his failing, he should be advised to return to his primary field of pharmacy, that is if he does not end up practising it the way he has done journalism. Well, there, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) will do well by clipping his wings.
Ainofenokhai sent this view from Benin via Jonny4deals@yahoo.com
