By Lekan Otufodunrin

I once wrote in this column that I don’t envy top journalists and others who accept to be spokesmen for political officeholders. What being a spokesperson turns them to be not what they would easily admit publicly.

The job of the Media Adviser or whatever fancy titles they are given to make them feel important is most times to defend the indefensible. Your personal view does not matter. You have to blindly defend your principal, his appointees or anyone associated with him no matter how wrong he and any other person may have acted or what they have said.

Woe betide you if you try to take a moderate position on an issue your boss is under fire for. You will be lucky if you are not sacked and disgraced out of office without you being able to defend yourself.

This is why we find an otherwise top journalist like the  Senior Special Assistant, Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu defending the embattled Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami in a way he (Pantami) has not been bold enough to do.

Having admitted and supposedly renounced the extremist views he made in the past for which he has come under widespread criticisms and call for his resignation, Pantami has kept quiet and must have been hoping that his critics will probably get tired.

His untenable defence was that his controversial statements were based on his understanding of religious issues at the time he made them and that he has changed several positions taken in the past based on new evidence and maturity.

When cornered like he is now, fundamentalists like him can claim to have moderated their views, but no one should be deceived as it has been confirmed by some other revelations of his actions even in his present position.

Read Also: The ‘new improved’ Pantami

Shehu did not disappoint like he has done in the past when he takes on the task of speaking up on controversial cases like this instead of the Special Adviser who is supposed to be the lead spokesperson.

He claims that there is an unfortunate fashion in public discourse that makes leaders in politics, religion, and civil society liable in the present for every statement they have ever made in the past – no matter how long ago, and even after they have later rejected them.

Why should public office holders not be held accountable for statements they have made before which they should not have uttered, no matter how long? But for the shoddy screening by security agencies, the nominations of people like Pantami should not have been approved by the national assembly.

In a digital age, the evil that men and women do, do not live after them, they are haunted alive if the evils can be dug out like in Pantami’s case.

Contrary to Shehu’s claim, the call for Pantami’s resignation has nothing to do with any “Cancel Campaign” and manufactured dispute solely due to his present action, the minister is simply under censor for an absolutely unacceptable statement then which did not publicly renounce until he was exposed for the kind of person he really his.

Shehu makes it seems like Pantami is the first Communication Minister the country has and will be the last. The contribution of the ICT sector to the GDP has progressively been significant over the years and the false impression should not be given that but for Pantami, it would have been less.

What is at stake now is unguarded and unwarranted statements which should not have been uttered by anyone in the past or now. Unless people like Pantami are penalised, others like him who are still fanning the embers of hate based on false religious beliefs will not know that there is a consequence for their utterances.