Picture Femi Adesina as President, Federal Republic of Nigeria and Muhammadu Buhari as his Special Adviser on Defence or Agriculture; I believe a President Reuben Abati would have fared better commanding Goodluck Jonathan as a Clerk in the Ministry of Agriculture’s Forestry unit. It’s quite heartwarming too to imagine an Eni Akisola as Governor of Ondo State while Olusegun Mimiko serves as a director in the state’s health ministry. If roles were swapped, do these bastions of Nigerian journalism possess the superior wisdom, intellect and charisma to lead?
Would the ‘elevated tact’ they offered in their news columns be enough? Would the relative truths and morality they projected on their pages and that endeared them to their teeming readership and patrons among the ruling class, guarantee their election into the esteemed and very demanding public offices?
Or would they need devilry and measured insensitivity to succeed, like the predatory ruling class they serve? Would they, like their principals manifest as everything but a boon to the Nigerian state, in time? Would they need journalists to evolve into ‘press boys’- vulgar, grotesque aberrations of the journalist as watchdog?
Nigeria savours the vulgar and sexually grotesque no doubt thus her fascination with the amoral beauty theme, the deformed beautiful boy to be precise. In this festering theme, the journalist suitably features in the machinations of a decadent and predatory ruling class. He becomes journalism’s dark answer to the society’s sinister lust for the beautiful boy – and so we have the journalist as the attractive ‘press boy,’ open to all manners of twisted, criminal and strange ventures.
Last year, we did strange things. ‘Press boys’ within and outside the country’s corridors of power gave the journalist a slatternly sensitivity. Thus the press boy manifested on Nigeria’s psyche, like a provider of degenerate pleasures, a commercial sex worker to be precise.
I hereby apologise to the wiry of the pack, the gentlemen/ladies of the press; the crusader breed that painstakingly burnt the hours, doing ‘legwork’ and anchoring reportage that impacted and changed lives, however nominal the impact. Apology to the editors and media too, that devoted pages and priceless hours to publish the news and investigative features that continually suffered the public’s apathy because they were too didactic and devoid of bias.
Last year, journalism fell to mob tyranny. I speak of that age-old tyranny of the mob that severely skews newspaper cover stories thus establishing the descent of the fabled press’ intellect into dimwittedness – no thanks to the journalist that mutated like Castiglione’s courtier, without the latter’s vaunted athleticism or social savvy.
Last year, the ‘press boy’ affected citizenship and justice with misty emotion, flaunting docile intellect, bearing and gestures of a mutt on the leash of a predatory ruling class. He was essentially a deformation of the courtier – his conduct is likable to that of the celebrity hairdresser, boudoir confidant or presidential lounge lizard perpetually nodding in affirmative to the caprices of his principal, the president, or every patron with deep pocket.
Last year, the press boy constantly groveled at the feet and filth attic of his principal in apparent affirmation of the truism: “He that pays the piper dictates the tune.” Flattery and malice leapt from his forked tongue as he attacked his principal’s perceived detractors with relish. Like the medieval, Italian male harlot, his shameless self abasement was unmanly and amoral; he elevated bum over forelock in a flagrant rite of socioeconomic and political sodomy.
Last year, the journalist misappropriated the warrior spirit; ‘press boys’ among us paraded themselves as leopards but chirped like crickets gone nuts, in dubious indignation at the whirlpool of tragedy that has become the Nigerian dream. The African Independent Television (AIT) for instance, went to war with reason, ethics and decency as reflected by its damaging , irresponsible broadcasts about candidate Muhammadu Buhari during the presidential elections. Last year, the ‘press boy’ was the ruling class’ beast of burden; he made sensibility a prelude to dog-eared masochism. This unfortunate reality was predetermined by his innate sensitivity. The ‘press boy’ suffered a moral concussion, a consequence of his perverse manifestation as a beast of moral grayness.
Outside the loop of power, he was the quintessential moralist, the unsolicited arbiter in matters of equity, nationhood and justice. In the loop of power, he became Reuben Abati to the ruling class’ Goodluck Jonathan; Femi Adesina to Muhammadu Buhari.
And the journalist that suffered the misfortune of being unacceptable to the incumbent power structure, hovered and loitered about the corridors of power, seeking the proverbial moment when fortune would smile at him and accord him wiggle room in the country’s theatre of base, bloody, political intrigues – think Dele ‘name-dropper’ and company.
Last year, the Nigerian ‘press boy’ like the Petrarchan lover, fancied himself deliciously powerless vis-a-vis a domineering society and media owner. Goaded by his sodomised sensibility, he accentuated his ethical contusion by seeking sufficiency in loot accorded him by the ruling class.
Last year, as all others, the journalist was insanely reactive; fettered by grinding poverty, institutional bias, dubious professionalism and imperious principals, he became a parody of masculinity whose words and deeds boomed as cloying mime of every criminal and politician’s desire. How can such character effectively discharge his role as watchdog of the society or defender of the masses’ rights?
Let this be the year we stopped enabling the journalist to betray us; the journalist as ‘press boy’ will never serve us. Nigeria deserves a press that would look Buhari in the eye and tell him that the honeymoon is over, while stifling the din of sentimental fops spiritedly chanting ‘Sai Buhari!’ to all of the president’s unforgivable gaffes.
Buhari isn’t expected to magically redeem the damage caused by his predecessor’s locust years in power, but it’s 2016 and we are done listening to drivel about how his predecessor (s) squandered the country’s resources and destroyed the nation’s economy. Nigeria deserves a press that would tirelessly remind Buhari of such fact; a press that would firmly and maturely make him understand that he isn’t the best that we have to offer but the country’s timely answer to the darkness and monstrosity foisted on us by his generation.
Buhari’s much-hyped calmness in face of provocation has gotten too old now. Nigeria does not need him to respond to gnats like Fayose, Metuh, Fani-Kayode and company but the country certainly deserves his coordinated and progressive response to maladies of recurrent fuel scarcity, insecurity, unemployment, substandard healthcare and education, brain drain and so on. Nigeria deserves a press that would tell him that his ridiculous reduction in fuel price from N87 to N86. 50 smacks of duplicity and desperate lust to be cuddled.
The joke is on him if he fails to live up to his campaign promises; he needs to know that whatever loot he recoups from his predecessors in power should be judiciously applied to the betterment of the nation where the impact would actually be felt in the lives of the citizenry.
This year unlike all others, the Buhari we give is the Buhari we will get. Let Buhari groupies stop using the press to cuddle Buhari. Let the press start telling it as it is. Who says Mr. President can’t bear the heat? Remember, he is Muhammadu Buhari and his second spell in power is encore.
