| Urhobo Historical Society |
The
Bayelsa State House of Assembly is
considering a
proposal brought before it by Governor Timipre
Sylva-Sam to the effect that all three media arms in the state � radio,
newspaper and television � be sold to
private
political interests, ahead of the 2011 elections. In this ninth chapter
of his
book, Epistle To
Maduabebe, Nengi
Josef Ilagha, journalist and broadcaster,
provides a basis for questioning
the rationale behind this move, and reveals the unwholesome attempts by
government to undermine the Fourth Estate of the Realm in Bayelsa.
For The
Sake Of Our
Media
Real peace is not just the
absence of
conflict; it is the presence of justice.
�
Harrison
Ford
By His Majesty Nengi
Josef Ilagha
Mingi XII, Amanyanabo
of Nembe
Bayelsa State, Nigeria
|
Y |
OUR
MAJESTY, I am obliged yet again to come before you on account of a writ
of
summons posted into my email box by my solicitors. The gist of it is
that I am
being summoned to appear in the Yenagoa
Judicial
Division, High Court of Bayelsa State of
Nigeria
pertaining to Suit No. YHC/270/2009 filed by Mr
Toinpre Berenah,
plaintiff. I am
listed as the First Defendant, while the Bayelsa
State Newspaper Corporation, BSNC, is named as Second Defendant. I will
do well
to acquaint you with a short history of the case in simple English, and
leave
you to draw your own conclusions.
As
you probably know by now, I was appointed General Manager of the
Corporation on
October 2, 2007, by Governor Timipre
Sylva-Sam, no
less. I assure you that the appointment came on the strength of the
pressure
mounted upon the governor by our mutual friend, Mister Ebiowei
Woyengipre Sokare,
erstwhile Commissioner for Information, who had come to the conclusion
that the
governor was being largely unfair to me, having left me to grope in the
proverbial lurch for so long and surrounding himself instead with a
varied
selection of hypocrites and fair-weather friends. Sokare
is entitled to his opinions.
My
appointment was greeted with a great deal of celebration by the good
people of Bayelsa, especially those who
were well acquainted with my
humble pedigree in the pen pushing business. On my part, I received the
news
with some measure of relief, and was quite willing to forgive the
governor for
his long-standing oversight on several scores. At any rate, it was
comforting
to know that I would not be working with Sylva at close quarters, as a
Special Adviser
for instance. I was content to remain at a self-respecting distance,
showing up
before him only when I have to, while doing my utmost to promote the
very best
that Sylva had to offer the land and people of Bayelsa.
By
virtue of my exploits in the local media industry up to that point, I
had no
doubt that it was equally my responsibility not to let the governor
sleep on
his oars when in fact he should be rowing out to sea. In other words,
if he
messed up along the line, it was my place to tell him in plain terms
that he
had messed up. That, in my estimation, remains the duty of a dedicated
and
patriotic journalist. Tell the truth and tell if forthrightly and
fearlessly.
If and when Sylva deserved kudos, I was willing and ready to be ahead
of the
praise singers. But when thumbs should be pointing down with regard to
the
unpopular policies and programmes of
government, I
shouldn�t be found sticking mine up. If I did, I would have betrayed my
sacred
mandate, so to speak.
That,
then, was how I saw my role as the new boss of the print arm of the
media. And
I expected, quite naturally, that Sylva would provide me and my
colleagues with
basic working tools without waiting for us to make any spectacular
overtures to
government, bowing and trembling on our knees. After all, even before
he became
the youngest member of the Rivers State House of Assembly in times
past, Sylva
had established a printing press in Port Harcourt, as a measure of his
belief
in the power of the written word.
In
other words, he understood too well that as members of the Fourth
Estate of the
Realm, we were part and parcel of government. If that applied in
principle,
then it might as well apply in practice. For an enlightened governor
with
Sylva�s credentials who pledged a great deal of respect for the highest
tenets
of democracy, it was the least we could expect. We could only promote
government if we had working tools to promote our opinions in the
public mind.
You
can imagine my amazement, therefore, when the governor announced my
appointment
and looked the other way, practically consigning me to history. It was
as
though he had done me a great favour by
appending the
title of General Manager to my name, and it was up to me to live up to
the
designation in my own way. In short, it soon became apparent that Sylva
was not
prepared to know whether or not we survived. For all he cared, we could
go jump
into the ox-bow lake and drown. But as Edwin Louis Cole put it, you
don�t drown
by falling into the water; you drown by staying there. Since I was not
in the
mood for drowning, therefore, I did my best to remain afloat and swim
ashore.
To
begin with, I needed to let the governor know that he didn�t make a
mistake by
appointing me to that humble office. After waiting for the better part
of one
month without word from government, therefore, I approached my friend
and
former school mate, Toinpre Berenah,
for assistance. He was working at the time as branch manager of a bank.
I
placed my cards on the table before him, gave a convincing account of
my
peculiar plight, and invited him to invest in what I believed to be a
worthwhile venture. Knowing how close the governor and I used to be in
the
past, Berenah reasoned that if he helped
me out now,
he stood a good chance to be remembered whenever the governor chose to
remember
me.
Berenah
granted me an initial loan of 600,000 (six hundred thousand) naira on a
monthly
interest of 20 percent. I accepted the sum with great gratitude, and
proceeded
to Lagos with a small editorial team to produce the prototype edition
of the
paper. I generated a corporate logo, designed a new template and
changed the
format of the paper for good, recasting it altogether to enable it
compete with
its peers at the national level. I worked out an elaborate outdoor
advertising programme for the paper,
reached out to vendors, and
virtually set out to win the patronage of our primary market of readers
and
advertisers alike.
But
we soon ran out of funds and nothing was as yet forthcoming from
government,
outside the paltry monthly overhead. With over 200 staff and about ten
departments and units to satisfy with regular remittances, it became a
great
challenge to get by week after week. Not only did I inherit darkness,
in the
words of Alamieyeseigha, I inherited a
whale of debts
as well. How could a newspaper house be expected to function in the
twenty-first century without regular power supply, without funds,
without
vehicles, without editorial tools, without marketing outlets, without
any link
to the worldwideweb?
On
November 27, 2007, I routed a correspondence to Chief Timipre
Sylva through the Honourable Commissioner,
Ministry
of Information, Culture and Communication, on re-making New
Waves in the following words:
�Your Excellency, I hope this correspondence
meets you
in good health and excellent spirits. Allow me to formally thank you
for
inviting me to play a cardinal role in the making of a new Bayelsa
by appointing me as General Manager to take charge of the fortunes of
the Bayelsa State Newspaper Corporation,
publishers of New Waves. To begin with, Management has
engaged the professional consultancy services of a Lagos-based
advertising and
media agency to re-invent our newspaper. Specifically, we have given
the
go-ahead for WorkStation Limited to undertake the following:
*
Website
design, including training of local administrator
*
Complete
make-over of New Waves, covering all
seven days of the week
*
Printing
of the first seven editions of the newspaper
*
Training
of four artists on layout and design software, to enable them work with
the
template afterward in Yenagoa
*
Collateral
design and printing of letter-headed papers, as well as ID and
complimentary
cards for all staff, with a new corporate logo.
*
Printing
of promotional vendor vests, car stickers, face caps and T-shirts
*
Week-long
refresher course in modern journalism for editorial staff in Yenagoa
*
Radio
and television jingles to orchestrate the advent of a new product on
the news
stands.
As you may have noticed from the foregoing,
Your
Excellency, we are settling for nothing but a virtually new brand-name
capable
of compelling the Nigerian media market, and the international
readership on
the web. The first promotional edition of New
Waves has already been published, dated Wednesday November 21-23,
2007.
Three editions have been ready since our formal outing. But we have
been unable
to print afresh on account of shortage of funds. Indeed our forthcoming
edition
will provide a symbolic occasion for the Bayelsa
State Government to identify with the state newspaper, and present it
in
commendable light to the public at a formal launch.
The presentation ceremony of the state
newspaper and
the inevitable facility tour around the premises by the Governor of Bayelsa will serve to provide you with an
opportunity to
appreciate the sorry problems facing the Corporation at first hand,
hopefully
in the second week of December, 2007.
To this end, we would require an initial sum
of
N20,000,000 (Twenty Million Naira) only, as part of a wholesome
take-off grant
such as you may see fit to approve, to enable us acquire basic working
tools
and a stand-by power generating plant. We have no doubt that we could
print the
first few promotional editions from this sum, host Your Excellency and
entourage to the formal launch in question, and set the stage for
repositioning
the paper among its national competitors.�
Over
my name and designation, I signed with a flourish. This humble request,
like
several others after it, fell on the deaf ears of the Sylva government.
To
undertake the day to day running of the office, therefore, I felt
obliged to
seek fresh assistance from Mr Berenah,
believing that we would repay his kindness as soon as commensurate
funds came
into the Corporation to enable us stabilize and offset our debts. Berenah was understanding
enough
to extend another lifeline of 250,000 (two hundred and fifty thousand)
naira.
That brought our indebtedness to our fateful benefactor to a total of
850,000
(eight hundred and fifty thousand) naira. Given the 20 percent interest
on it,
and with nothing defrayed from the capital, this sum quickly
accumulated from
month to month and stood at an embarrassing pile by the time I left the
active
service of the Corporation twenty months later, without the expected
overture
from the Bayelsa State Government. The
plaintiff is
now making a case for 4,420,000 (four million, four hundred and twenty
thousand) naira.
I
had assured Mr Berenah
that, since I secured the loan on personal recognition and in my honourable name, I would do well to pay it off.
But since I
was acting in the best interest of the Corporation, however huge it may
be in
the end, the interest would rest squarely on the Corporation and
therefore on
Sylva�s government. He saw reason with me, was truly sympathetic to my
cause,
and encouraged me to pay off the capital in order to stem the interest
to a
manageable level. Incidentally, I was unable to offset the capital, and
the
interest kept mounting until our helper was compelled to seek court
action.
The
Commissioners under whom I served, both of whom were my former
colleagues as
Special Advisers, did not help matters. As passionate as they pretended
to be
about moving the media forward, they were both overtaken by a desperate
need to
keep a sizeable share of whatever token was likely to come from the
coffers of
government. Suffice it to say that Sokare�s
tenure as
Commissioner for Information came to an uneventful end without any
extension of
financial relief for the Bayelsa State
Newspaper
Corporation. Instead, he cultivated a fertile conspiratorial friendship
with
Megan Bozimo, the boss at the radio house,
and did
his best to grip the neck of Morris Ozeke,
General
Manager of the pending television station, under his armpit.
When
Sokare�s successor, Chief Asara
A. Asara, came on board, hope was
rekindled among
management and staff of BSNC, especially given Asara�s
heroic pronouncements on his maiden visit to our offices on Friday
September 5,
2008. Asara threatened to resign his
appointment
unless Sylva swiftly responded to the plight of the Corporation. He
could be
depended upon, he said, to convince the entire State Executive Council
that a
gold mine was going to waste at BSNC, what with the gargantuan printing
machine
that was gathering rust for seven years running. He was referring to
the
seven-chamber Rotary King Press acquired by the Alamieyeseigha
government in 2001 for a staggering fortune of 1.2 billion naira.
In
spite of all his posturing, however, that was the last we were to hear
from Asara. He turned a blind eye to the
lack of vehicles at the
Corporation, the absence of basic working tools, the sheer dearth of
funds. He
turned a deaf ear to our entreaties for government intervention. To be
fair to
him, he did give assurance that he had won a battle royale
on behalf of the Corporation, having secured 262 million naira being
the
balance for refurbishment of the printing machines which had been
on-going from
day one, on behalf of the contractors, Industrial Press Limited. In
addition,
he categorically stated that 52 million naira had been received by his
office
on behalf of the Corporation, and Management would do well to let him
take
stock of our priorities so that the Ministry would purchase and supply
us with
what we needed as soon as possible.
However,
Asara�s priorities were elsewhere. His
interest
obviously lay with the state-owned electronic media, especially the
television
station, which was gulping funds as surely as a glutton at work under
the new
management of the highly ubiquitous Megan Bozimo.
After six months of waiting for Asara to
make good
his word, I practically took up the gauntlet. On the basis of what he
had told
me about the funds he had secured on our behalf, I went to town with a
loud
proclamation on the front page of the WWW edition of April 24-May 1,
2008. The
headline read as follows:
Asara Disowns Baby
�denies N52
million grant to BSNC
Like
every edition before it, that May Day cry came like a bombshell on Bayelsa. The quake it caused resounded in every
home. In
the body of the story, I challenged the Commissioner to declare the
various
amounts he said he had secured in our name. I called on him to resign
from
office on grounds of proven incompetence and inexperience in media
management.
By so doing, I had put a bell on the cat, for indeed public opinion on Asara�s credentials was as low as could be,
given his
intrepid record of fraudulence in past governments. I had done what no
one
could contemplate under the circumstance, calling upon my immediate
boss to
vacate his office.
Asara was
heart-broken. The Akipelai chief looked
like a wet
chicken in the rain. His countenance became gloomier by the day. He
lost face
wherever he went, avoided his own office for weeks and, before long,
developed
symptoms of Parkinson�s disease. Nothing he held was steady in his
hands
anymore, except perhaps the funds that he never tired of acquiring, and
he was
prepared to blame anybody but himself on his sorry plight. Some of Asara�s friends, however, came to his rescue
with an advice
to suspend me from office. Asara wondered
why he
hadn�t thought of that before.
So
it was that on June 3, 2009, Asara put out
an
announcement over the state radio to the effect that I had been
summarily
suspended from office on an indefinite basis. A letter to that effect
was
served on me a few days later. I took it all in my stride. I received
urgent
signals from sundry sources that I should watch my back. Asara
and his fellow wizards were thirsty for blood. The paper upon my lap
had done
irreparable damage to his reputation, far more than I thought possible.
The
wolf had been forced out of his pretentious sheep�s clothing and was
baring his
fangs at the moon, howling for blood.
For
the time being, I chose to hang my gloves and give him some respite,
sufficient
time to prance around the ring, feeling cool with himself. I suspended
publication of the next edition of WWW that would have come as a
haymaker on
the jaws of my assailant. Asara is still
pretending
that he has won the face-off. He is still bragging all over town that
he will
remain Commissioner for Information and Communication for as long as Timipre Sylva, �that small boy in politics�
remains
Governor of Bayelsa State. When last seen,
Asara was on his way to India with eight
million naira in
his kitty, approved by the same Sylva, for the fisherman from Akipelai to recover from his groggy bout with
Pope Pen and
hopefully survive Parkinson�s Syndrome.
Your
majesty, I have gone so far as to put you in remembrance of these
recent
events, not because you are not aware of them, but because you need to
put
things in perspective. You need to understand why I hold you culpable
in all
this. None of this would have happened to bring shame to your door
step, if you
had acted like a large-hearted father of the government. You were in a
position
to intervene, but you did not. You could have forestalled the mess to
come, but
you were preoccupied with making much more mess elsewhere. You were so
besotted
with your gown and crown that you forgot your role as a royal mediator
whose
opinion counted primarily with the governor.
All
you needed to do from the start was to acknowledge the role of the
media in
governance, especially the print media, and give it the patronage it
deserved.
All you needed to do was support the growth of all three arms of the
media in Bayelsa on an equal basis,
without particular preference
for any. All you needed to do was speak up in defence
of righteousness. But you preferred to remain silent and let things go
to seed.
You installed the government, virtually brought it into office, and
denied your
role as kingmaker. Your ponderous intervention was all that was needed,
but you
felt too majestic in your self-esteem to come forth.
The
other day it was widely reported in the papers that your nephew engaged
Fred Agbedi, the chairman of a faction of
the Bayelsa PDP in physical combat, in
Abuja. Since when did
Sylva become a boxer, and under which coach did he train? Why did the
governor
find it necessary to lock up a law-abiding citizen who was doing his
job as a
journalist, having waylaid him in Abuja and ferried him all the way to
his
private gulag inside the confines of Creek Haven? These are sorry
incidents
that could have been avoided, in the first place, if the state
newspaper were
fortified for a wholesome campaign of corporate image-making for Bayelsa.
Inevitably,
therefore, you practically watched with glee while Rome went up in
flames. Like
good old Nero, you did not reckon with the fact that, in the end, the
flames
would consume you even as you played out your finest tunes to the
admiration of
your private gallery of royal ushers, court clowns, sycophants and
money
mongers. Alas, the long expected day of reckoning has caught up with
you. Do
not look elsewhere to lay the blame. It lies heavily upon your lap, and
remains
quite at home there.
I
rest my case for now, waiting to take it up again as soon as possible.
What�s
more, you will recall that, in the days following your coronation, I
dutifully
requested that you grant the state newspaper a well-deserved interview.
You
considered this beneath your royal esteem, and yet the front pages of
our peers
in the newspaper and magazine market were aglow with colourful
editions of your grand coronation ceremony. I am obliged, therefore, to
bring a
fresh questionnaire before you. Please answer the following XII
questions, and
be as frank and current as possible.
I.
Can
you carry a
cross half way down your bedroom? What, indeed, is your personal
relationship
with King Jesus?
II.
Why
did you find
it particularly necessary to declare the Holy Spirit contraband in all
your
dealings with the world, while pleading lip service to Christ and
Christianity?
III.
What is your
personal monthly royalty from the oil companies operating in your
domain, and
what do you do with the proceeds?
IV.
What percentage of
the emoluments from each burial ceremony in Nembe
comes to you at the end of every funeral, and from each grieving family?
V.
What
is the exact
role you played in the infamous Halliburton scandal involving highly
placed
Nigerians, such as yourself and Olusegun Obasanjo, among others, making headline news
around the
world till date? Exactly how much of the Halliburton bonus did you set
aside to
bribe members of the Nembe Chiefs Council
for them to
shut up when you are talking?
VI.
It
has since come
to the knowledge of the Nigerian public that a portrait of Yar�Adua�s
wife adorns the President�s official chamber alongside the coat of
arms, whereas
neither his portrait nor that of his Vice are anywhere in evidence.
This fact
was widely established by the cameras of AIT in their report of October
1,
2009, during the Independence Day broadcast by the President. Given
your years
in public office and in the Presidency, is this appropriate? Or, does
it mean
that Nigeria is being ruled by her first female President, acting in
the shadows?
VII.
Where
would you
prefer to serve your life-time jail sentence, in Nembe
or in Switzerland?
VIII.
What
was your favourite meal in prison,
following your crimes at the
NNPC? Do you perhaps have any new preferences, so to speak, such that
all
warders around the world may take note in the event that you turned up
like a
bad coin?
IX.
When do you hope to
reconstruct the unity bridge in Nembe? Or,
are your
thoughts disunited on the subject of unity and brotherhood?
X.
What is your plan
to eliminate the mosquitoes and tse-tse
flies in the
better part of your kingdom in a bid to contain the outbreak of
diseases
associated with these insects so that your friends, colleagues and
associates
from abroad can visit freely before the end of the world?
XI.
Is
your bank
account as wide as Skye Bank? If not, how intercontinental is it? If
not, how
oceanic is it? And, in your knowledgeable estimation, how many bank
accounts
make one billionaire?
XII.
How
large is the
mausoleum you plan to build for yourself, and what are the specific
dimensions
of the ancestral structure in mathematical terms?