By Jide Oluwajuyitan
Tinubu, for the battle for the presidency, fought principalities and powers – “sum-total of evil powers that threaten man both heavenly and earthly” (Paul: Ephesians, 3:10). There were the errant political fathers, his APC ruling party, treacherous fellow party members, the unquestioning Obidients, the social media terrorists, children of anger, Christians without spirit of Christ and of course the opposition PDP and Labour . But perhaps none of these Tinubu’s traducers loathe him as much as the mainstream media led by The Punch and the Tribune that daily pour scorn on him.
But even after miraculously surviving the heavily mined Nigerian political landscape, there are none more desperate to bring Tinubu down than Obaigbena’s ThisDay/Arise TV and John Momoh’s Channels Television.
Just as it was at the beginning when their obsession was in delegitimizing the candidacy of Bola Ahmed Tinubu instead of selling their anointed candidates, they are today irrevocably committed to delegitimizing his victory as president-elect. In this vicious battle, neither rules of behaviour or professional ethics are respected, forcing the NBC to recently slam them with fines of N2m and N5m respectively.
The mainstream media started their malicious attack by first raising questions about his lineage, schools he attended, health status and alleged criminal records long debunked by the USA state department. Their savage attack was soon joined by social media anarchists and fascists. Then arrogating to themselves the power to make choices for the electorate, the mainstream media picked issues with his choice of Muslim-Muslim ticket. Journalists who probably believe in nothing, out of mischief started to mobilise pastors across the country.
Then his refusal to appear on Arise TV platform to be bullied by ‘high flying’ journalists who claim to have a degree in “animal psychology” became an issue leading to December 12, 2022’s duplicitous “You can’t silence free press”, and Dele Alake/Bayo Onanuga’s Dec 13, 2022 reference to what they describe as “Nduka Obaigbena and his THISDAY/ARISE NEWS’ hypocritical grandstanding on public morality”.
But the editors, more than anyone else know there is no free media anywhere in the world. They are owned by owners of society who use them as instrument for waging the battle of consciousness. The media therefore is never a .free place for market of ideas because he who pays the piper dictates the tune. What confers credibility on any publication or TV station is the character of those who know how to “walk the tight rope” (Alhaji Babatunde Jose) by understanding they don’t have to fight the battle of their enslavers like slaves.
Professionalism often reminds them of their equal responsibilities to society.
Here at home, Daily Times was never ideologically neutral. Yet it became the most powerful and credible paper in Nigeria at a time. So was The Guardian which became the flagship of Nigerian press, preaching liberalism without offending the sensibilities of its conservative owners. The issue today is that some of our ill-trained practitioners without character have according to Uncle Sam Amuka, “changed all the rules of journalism”.
The coverage of the 2023 election by the mainstream media raised questions about their commitment to our country. Let us start with Arise TV and Channels. The former started the day with two distinguished analysts- Liborous Oshoma and Professor Adele Jinadu, a celebrated scholar, formerly of University of Lagos. Both agreed “the election was seamless even in areas where there were no security operatives. No one has been harassed, kudos to INEC, BVAS worked. It is a game changer. No one was saying they cannot find their name.” Jinadu concluded by saying “It shows a lot of work has been put into the electoral process by INEC and security agencies”.
The reports of Arise TV field reporters supported their position. Atiku was quoted after voting as saying “It is a worthwhile exercise”, Okowa as “Thanking God for peaceful and fair election” with Datti declaring “it is the most peaceful election” while Peter Obi in Anambra said “The line was moving seamlessly” ‘INEC has done well”. It was the same smooth process in Kaduna, Bauchi, Ilorin, Plateau and Adamawa where governors were interviewed. YIAGA Africa authenticated this and scored INEC high.
But Arise TV, as it did during EndSARS protest, seems determined to cause ethnic tension in Lagos. At Eti Osa and Ikate Elegushi where their reporter spoke of massive de-franchising of voters, it turned out that Labour did not only win the area, an unknown scooter rider defeated popular Banky W of PDP and Obanikoro of APC. In the gubernatorial election, Arise TV blew few skirmishes in Lekki, Ikate, Surulere, Ikate Elegushi where it claimed “people were not allowed to vote, queues were disrupted by hoodlums or that results are not uploaded simultaneously as promised by INEC” out of proportion.
The Lagos State Police Commissioner, Idowu Ohohunwa interviewed by Arise and Channels denied social media claim of widespread political skirmishes and massive voter suppression in Lagos adding that the over-exaggerated infractions constituted only one per cent of the 13,325 polling booths in Lagos. Yet it is this infraction ARISE and Channels have been relying upon to discredit the 2023 election.
With all the results from all polling units already in Abuja and with all stakeholders showing Tinubu was heading for an outright victory contrary to their hope of a hung election requiring a re-run, the mainstream media as represented by Arise and Channels could not stand the victory of Bola Tinubu. They are in spite of their field reports prepared to do anything to delegitimize an election most Nigerians think may turn out to be the most credible after the 1993 MKO Abiola’s annulled election.
The other plank for their crusade to delegitimize the credibility of the election was INEC’s failure to upload results of the election simultaneously. INEC and experts have confirmed the source of what is uploaded is the hard copy of the result duly signed by all party agents and the police at every polling booth, which meant that rigging can only be inferred if the results with stakeholders from polling booth are found to be different from those eventually posted by INEC.
The mainstream media, seeing only what they want to see, have continued to undermine the result of the election. Reading some of their columnists in The Punch, Tribune and Thisday makes one wonder if the writers are Nigerians. Since others call you what you call yourself, the international media, taking a cue from some of our unpatriotic journalists have started to address Tinubu the president-elect the way we addressed him in order to delegitimize his victory. Who does not know that given a choice, the West will prefer an importer of labour of other societies?
Of course ARISE and Channels have continued to offer their platform to PDP and Labour sore losers who were never part of the democratic struggle to delegitimize the result of the elections whose results they accepted where they won but rejected where they lost. At Channels, Datti the Labour VP candidate said the election was rigged. But when asked if the over six million votes his party won (exploiting ethnic and religious sentiments) was also rigged, he said no!
Nigerians who care about their country are scandalized by ARISE TV’s duplicitous argument that those asking for interim government and those at the Defence Head-quarters begging the military to take over after losing an election are protected by democratic ethos. The only way to describe what the mainstream media are currently doing to our country because of their hatred for one man is fascism.
Culled from The Nation
