There are probably 149 million All
Progressives Congress members in Nigeria. That is if you go by the logic
of Nigeria’s ruling class and their social media minions. If you have
been paying attention to them, you’d by now know that PUNCH newspapers, SaharaReporters, Premium Times, Omojuwa.com
and indeed all the news platforms and blogs that do not praise the
government daily for what it is not doing and what it is doing are
“agents” of the APC. If you have a social media account, sharp and
expressive enough to attract government minions, you dare not express
your feelings about the direction of the government; if you get caught,
you will be labeled an APC member. Seeing as most Nigerians complain
about the direction of their country and the spate of impunity, we’d
have to say they are all APC members! They just need media platforms to
amplify their voices to have the government label them such through
their proxies.
Continue reading after the cut....
The argument is simple; if you are not
for them, do not in any way take a contrary stand from them. To them,
you are better off quiet. If you dare voice a contrary opinion, you are
for the APC! The Nigerian economy has been rebased and Nigeria is now
Africa’s biggest economy. That is all they want you to relay to the
masses. Once you start letting the masses know that the rebasing will
not mean that insecurity will become security, and that corruption will
not evolve into accountability to the point the $20bn alleged to have
been stolen by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation would
suddenly be discovered and duly accounted for, you are a government
hater. In their books, letting the public know that the paltry minimum
wage will remain virtually useless in the face of biting economic
realities; that despite the rebased economy or debased economy, Ghana
remains the home of even some of our secondary school students not to
mention university students, you are not patriotic. Except you help the
government sell the lies and deception it wants sold to the people, you
are an APC member. Anyone who complains about the government is an APC
member. Anyone who dares challenge the government to do better, get more
open and transparent must have been paid by the political detractors of
the government. Their motto is; after all else fails, try blackmail!
While this is the mode of operation of
the Jonathan government, it is not limited to them. “Who do you work
for?”, was ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s direct question to me after I
had asked him questions relating to his tenure as Nigeria’s president
during a lunch event organised in his honour by a German organisation in
Berlin sometime ago. As far as the ex-president was concerned, it was
not in the place of an average Nigerian to question him about the 2007
elections (otherwise called a debacle) or his responsibility as a man
who had led Nigeria for about one of each of its every five years of
independent existence, with its attendant failures and poverty. Having
fired several shots at the current government during the session, I bet
he thought the Jonathan government paid one to have a go at him. The
irony of that thought still rocks me. Is it not sad, that in our
country, for one to have an opinion, especially a strong one on how
these men and women have run our country aground, one must have been
paid? That those who rule us refuse to believe that they are accountable
to us the ordinary people and that we have all the rights to demand
good governance, better service delivery and accountability at all
times. Mr. Waziri Adio’s recent article in a national newspaper titled,
“Demonisation and Blackmail as Official Policy”, best sums it up
nicely.You can find it via Google.
Those that want to be silenced can choose
silence. People like myself have since realised that we have to become
our own force of opposition to make the government do the right thing.
Citizen journalists have in my opinion pressured this government and put
it on its knees than the conventional political opposition put
together. We can’t trust political parties to fight our battles,
especially parties where the people who say the same government is
bloody, useless and worthy of impeachment wake one morning to say the
same is responsible and worthy of praise. Average Nigerian politicians
are like molecules in a political solution, they move from a point of
less influence, power and money to one where they get more of that. In
Nigeria, the membrane separating the two main political parties is so
permeable; you cannot say who belongs where at any point in time at
times. How can we trust such people to fight our battles in a world
where power has been deregulated through new media tools and we can be
our own voices?This is why government blackmail has failed and will
continue to fail! We will not be blackmailed into silence when the
destiny of our country demands that we speak out, act and get it to work
or get it out of the hands of those who insist it must be chop-I-chop
till Nigeria quenches!
There is a blackmail that works though.
Have you noticed that phone-in programmes on radio and television are
always quick to cut off callers who start taking on the government or
specific personalities in government? If you haven’t noticed, please pay
attention. Do not blame the presenters or producers of these shows.
They either stylishly silence strong voices against the government or
have their programmes shut down by the host television or radio station
itself. This is because the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission never
misses any of the political shows at least. The NBC has boundaries for
not just presenters but even callers. Callers are not aware of these
boundaries but presenters being aware are often conscious and they end
up at times even being rude to their callers by cutting them off. Ask a
presenter of any of these shows like I did over the last couple of days,
the fear of the NBC is the beginning of whether your show will air the
next day or not.
We all sleep and wake thinking and
assuming we have a free press but that is a delusion we must jostle
ourselves out of immediately. There is no free press in Nigeria, only
some form of pretence at freedom. Even some news platforms that you
trusted in the past have now been compromised into silence. Do not take
my word for it, listen and watch your favourite news platforms
differently this week. You will see what you are being used to watching
and listening to them everyday made you miss. Nothing is what it was,
highest bidders have the spaces and those with political power are
trading everything to ensure the media do their bidding. If you run the
media, you run what the people see and listen to. If you run what the
people see and listen to, you have the people exactly where you want
them. Did you really think that the Nigerian Television Authority was so
important to Nigerians government kept it under its watch and control?
No! The NTA is so important to Nigerian rulers, they need it to keep the
people watched and controlled. There is another side to this coin
called Nigerian democracy; we must turn that side to truly have a
country where freedom and liberty are not just delusions and lies but
everyday realities. It is the responsibility of us the citizens to make
that happen or we perish in our common poverty and seeming weakness.
Jide Ojo returns next week
- Japheth Omojuwa [@Omojuwa]
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