It is not ‘just a billboard’ if it suggests subliminal bias to impressionable minors. It is not ‘a harmless campaign’ if it corrupts the thinking of the youth. Thus every element of the ‘Lagos is my success story’ media campaign manifests as a ritual of provocation; a rite of mediocrity, scorched by prejudice and shackled to ignorance.
The grandeur of the campaign subsists in its classification of role models; Lagos names its finest and celebrates them. But role models, like mentors, should be exemplars of excellence, ethics and unimpeachable character.
Thus of hip hop crooner, Olamide Adedeji a.k.a Baado and Sunday Punch Editor, Toyosi Ogunseye, who would Governor Ambode request to mentor his teenage child? Of Fuji maestro, Wasiu Alabi a.k.a Pasuma Wonder and Prof. Sophie Oluwole, the UNILAG academic working with various African countries to have indigenous African knowledge systems included in schools’ curriculum, who would Ambode suggest as mentor to his daughter?
Of hip hop singer, Banky W and Ajanaku Babatunde, a staff of Ojota Senior Secondary School, who won the Best Teacher Award in the Lagos Secondary Schools Category recently, who would Ambode suggest as mentor to his son?
As Lagos celebrates its 50th anniversary, it excludes teachers and journalists from its narrative out of spite – latent spite perhaps. The spiteful dialectic of the incumbent State government is sweepingly comprehensive and accurately projects the fallacies and notions of the ruling class about the worth and contributions of educators and journalists to the statehood.
Beneath this curious malice, an uglier message resonates: “Journalists and teachers are worthless in Lagos.” Thus Governor Akinwumi Ambode and his team once again, amplify his predecessor’s barbed love and veiled loathing for teachers and journalists.
True, Lagos announces the best teacher in the State and awards a prize to the recipient often in a drab ceremony. But the latter’s exploits are deliberately underplayed and hidden in plain sight.
While Lagos celebrates marketers of filth, sex scandals, violence and corruption – alongside very few remarkable citizens – as the State’s pride, at its 50th anniversary, the State deliberately ignores the achievements of the moral, devoted, sterling men and women by whose exploits and contributions the likes of Governor Ambode and his team became the ‘titans’ they claim to be today.
Teachers moulded Ambode and his team into the men and women they have become today. And I am sure the incumbent government remembers how it used journalists to achieve its dream of emerging as Lagos’ new ruling class – a sad reality this writer continually objects to.
Yet Lagos violently silences the excellent achievements of exceptional teachers in the State, the same way it stifles the attainments and value of journalists to Lagos. This is the juncture at which the governor’s lackeys would scoff and exhume ‘revelations’ and ‘realities’ of the media’s dirty secrets. Thus it won’t be surprising to hear them prattle about the level of corruption and incompetence of journalists and the Nigerian media. It’s sadder to note that their argument could be true, in most part.
This doesn’t mean that all journalists are corrupt. Not every journalist can be tarred with the brush of incompetence and corruption. Perhaps the Lagos government has suffered unsavourable experiences by journalists thus its undisguised disdain for them.
But shall we as journalists cum citizenry of the State also condemn the Lagos government as a coven of brutes and looters of public fund simply because of tragic experiences with previous governments?
Would it be appropriate to label Governor Ambode as irredeemably corrupt, incompetent and vicious, simply because most incumbent and past public officers have been established so? Would it be logical to infer that his ongoing development drive is a ruse, a coordinated scheme to con the electorate and earn their mandate for a second term simply because most governors are known to do that? Would it be alright to tar the ‘indefatigable governor’ with the brush of the pseudo progressive and performer simply because his predecessor and peers have established themselves so? If it would be wrong to imagine such of Governor Ambode, it is likewise unforgivable to consider all journalists corrupt and ‘lap dogs’ of the ruling class, simply because of a few or many ‘bad eggs.’
I do not care what manner of relationship the State nurtures and sustains with its ‘friendly journalists’ and ‘media managers’ in the State; I speak for the youth. I speak for the diligent men and women pulling all stops to foster development by engaging the citizenry and ruling class via progressive, honest, public service journalism.
It is unclear what manner of due process birthed the ‘Lagos is my success story’ media contract/jamboree but the manner of execution of the campaign, from the trashy bill boards used to its horrid subliminal messages, establish the mediocrity, shallowness and prejudice of the team in charge.
Lagos emphatically markets hip hop artistes to the youth as role models, irrespective of their true nature. Olamide for instance, is a very talented and brilliant artiste – no doubt – but he continually preens about people wanting to kill him in almost every music track. He celebrates promiscuity, consequence-free violence and sex in lewd lyrics and expressive beats. And you could really dance to it.
Toyosi on the other hand, is an investigative journalist whose work has enriched the human condition in Lagos teaching hospitals, industrial complexes, socioeconomic and security sectors. It is only in Lagos government’s middling and misshapen universe that a character like Olamide would command greater recognition and respect than Sunday Punch Editor, Toyosi Ogunseye, and The Cable’s former Editor, Fisayo Soyombo, among others.
Sunday Punch’s Toyosi has won the CNN/Multichoice African Journalist of the Year Award, back to back, among several local and international media excellence awards. Her stories, like celebrated investigative journalists, Emmanuel Maya’s and Fisayo Soyombo’s depict and shed light on the corruption of the human condition and likely solutions to societal maladies.
These are men and women of uncommon valour and devotion to the pursuit of public good and they are celebrated world over for their exploits. Lest we forget the very few but rare breed of honourable senior editors, journalists and multiple merit award-winners at Nigeria’s major newspapers.
These journalists and their ilk expose the shamelessness, incompetence and greed of public officers and so-called ‘corporate titans.’ They are serial award winners for public service journalism that any nation would be proud of. But the Lagos government scorns their achievements.
Perhaps if Toyosi, Soyombo and colleagues were children of a governor, corporate titan or friend of the incumbent government, they would be celebrated as great role models and ambassadors of Lagos.
Welcome to Lagos, the State that gleefully hosted Kim Kardashian in celebration of perverse celebrity in curious circumstances. This is Lagos, where foreign footballers, artistes and politicians with expiry dates are canonised while the timeless contributions, citizenship and excellence of journalists and teachers are ignored, simply because they have got no ‘swagger.’
Yeah, Lagos values ‘swagger’ over merit. It celebrates brilliance only when it is garnished with the base and corrupt, atrocious ego and strut.
However, some of the persons celebrated in the ‘Lagos at 50’ media campaign are indeed deserving of recognition. They are men and women of merit and remarkable citizenship. You could identify them as your politics and personal ethics dictate.
Ambode’s ‘Lagos is my success story’ for all its glamour and ingenuity, symbolises the cultural shift of Lagos from disciplined enterprise, humaneness and morality to unbridled hedonism. It markets celebrity to the youth as the zenith of ambition and human endeavour. It is the stuff dreams are maimed by.
