It’s still a blast picturing Femi Adesina as President, Federal Republic of Nigeria and Muhammadu Buhari as his Special Adviser on Defence or Agriculture. I still 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 heartwarming too to imagine Adejuwon Soyinka as Governor of Ogun State while Ibikunle Amosun serves as a clerk in the state’s Ministry of Environment. Picture Eni Akisola as Ondo governor and Olusegun Mimiko as his Press Secretary. 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 are part of? 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? Would they also treat journalists like cow dung?
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 was 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.
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.
This year was supposed to be different, but the Nigerian ‘press boy’ like the Petrarchan lover, fancies himself deliciously powerless vis-a-vis a domineering society and media owner. Goaded by his sodomised sensibility, he accentuates his ethical contusion by seeking sufficiency in loot accorded him by the ruling class – particularly in these hard times.
This year as all others, the journalist has been insanely reactive; fettered by grinding poverty, irregular salary, institutional bias, dubious professionalism and imperious principals, he becomes a parody of morality whose words and deeds boom as cloying mime of every criminal and politician’s desire even as you read. How can such character effectively discharge his role as watchdog of the society or defender of the masses’ rights?
This was supposed to be the year in which we stopped enabling the ‘press boy’ to betray us. Nigeria deserves a press that would look Buhari in the eye and tell him that the honeymoon is over, while stifling with truth, the din of sentimental fops spiritedly chanting ‘Sai Buhari!’ to all of the president’s unforgivable gaffes.
Nigeria treats her journalists like cow-dung. Politicians, technocrats, civil servants, clerics and even the jobless, directionless youth on the street laments society’s affliction by ‘rogues’ and ‘dimwits’ masquerading as journalists – they forget that the journalist reflects the society he serves, in culture and persona.
As a journalist, I am at risk of such random dehumanisation. The best I could do is tailor my practice against the tide of diseased journalism. Journalists are in part, Nigeria’s problem but despite our ugliness, we cannot be wished away nor can we be weeded out by violence or bloodshed. It’s about time we aspired to something more than the monstrosities standing in the way of civilization, progress and common decency.
Today, we see the death journalism because we are desperate enough to demean its essence and powers playing errand ‘boys’ to every party chieftain and thug occupying public office. Thus we pimp and syndicate grandiose articles, “Special Investigations” and “Truths of the matter” that are as relative as our inclinations to play dumb. Does anyone still listen to us? Whose lives do we impact by our pretentious lines and mercantile intellectualisation?
It’s about time we addressed media grotesqueness by expansion in breadth of practice, reason, catholicity of will and culture. Our native aspiration as enablers of men who loot our coffers to feed their greed must not be encouraged any further. Nor should we persist in pitiful complacency and acquiescence to their boorish enterprises, for the love of a token.
