There is no doubt that senior public office holders in Nigeria have become endangered species as Pull Him Down merchants that are always on their heels exploit unethical media outfits in getting at them. Many reasons could be responsible for this situation. Chief among the factors is the limit at which public office holders could address the PRESS to defend allegation against their persons, each time issue[s] crop up. Here, institutional structure is to be blamed for senior public officers’ lack or limited access to the press. Mindset of media practitioners and proliferation of the industry, especially, the unethical Internet Information Dissemination outfits is yet another sad albatross on the neck of public office holders. These groups of media outfit are always in the habit of running down anybody they do not like. They also encourage professional mischief makers and blackmailers to get at their victims without giving audience to those whose character and integrity are being impinged in the interest of news or story balancing, in deference to global best practices in journalism.
PERSPECTIVES THAT LEND CREDENCE TO THE THEORY OF DEFICIENCY IN ACCESSING MEDIA BY SENIOR PUBLIC OFFICE HOLDERS WHICH HAS MADE THEM ENDANGERED SPECIES IN NIGERIA BECAUSE OF THE ACTIVITIES OF PROFESSIONAL BLACKMAILERS AND UNETHICAL MEDIA OUTFITS.
Recently, the Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Aloma Mukhtar, while swearing in new justices to the Supreme Court, told Justice Jumbo Offor from Abia State that she will not be sworn-in because of petition regarding her state for origin. The following day and thereafter, the CJN was called all sorts of names for her “refusal” to swear-in Jumbo Offor. But the truth of the matter was that the judiciary has a tradition they follow as regards State of Origin, Promotion and related matters, which all actors in judicial circle know, including Justice Jumbo Offor; it was violated in her case. Since the nature of CJN’s office did not allow her to make public statement, nobody heard the official reason behind refusal to swear-in Justice Jumbo Offor in the first place. Surely, the CJN was right in her decision.
Until the immediate past Comptroller General of Immigration was asked to proceed on retirement leave, media reports suggested she was sacked. She will never have the opportunity to defend herself in this regard. This is the point this writer is making here.
President Goodluck Jonathan and the National Assembly appear to be on collision course over the non execution of the sack instruction of the Chairman of Security and Exchange Commission [SEC], Arunma Oteh; handed down to the President by NASS. Perhaps, if Oteh were to be a politician, her current travail will not go this way; but because she is a public servant, she is under obligation not to address the press, where a no hold bare explanation to the public of her encounter may be necessary. Nigerians may never know the true story of Arunma Oteh and NASS, from the point of view of the under currents and intrigues associated with problem.
Surely, it is not for fancy that President Goodluck Jonathan decided to increase the number of people in charge of information management as regards him. Only God knows what will have happened if the President is not allowed to speak to the public in the circumstances in question. Only a novice will question the rationale behind the appointment of Dr. Doyin Okupe when Ruben Abati as Press Personals. Mr. President has to manage professional mischief makers and blackmailers both politically and intellectually, hence, Abati and Dr. Okupe appointment. This is what AIG Bala Hassan, etal are suffering from. It could be recalled that during the Africa First Ladies Summit in Abuja, the First Lady of Nigeria, Dame Patience Jonathan was not speared by professional press blackmailers. She was said to have purchased 200 SUV cars for Africa First Ladies for the summit. The story turned out to be a hoax after all. The recent thanksgiving ceremony the First Lady organized in Abuja was mischievously said to have gulped N500 million by the same Saharareporters.com, without evidence. The list of reports intended to blackmail office holder in Nigeria is endless.
On the 13th of January, 2013, an online information dissemination outfit, saharareporters.com, carried a story written by one Okechukwu Nwanguma, said to be the coordinator of Program and Advocacy Network on Police Reform in Nigeria. There, Nwanguma narrated what his client told him as the petition he wrote to Police Service Commission [PSC]. The story itself sought to join issue with the Chairman of the Commission, Parry Osayande, a man whose pedigree in Policing in Nigeria cannot be questioned. It must be noted here that Parry himself had been a victim of LACK OF PRESS ACCESS during his days in active service. For those of us who have been following developments in the Nigerian Police, Parry Osayande is somebody who we can vouch for his Integrity, Courage and Tenacity. We should not forget that he courageously and diligently investigated the gruesome murder of Geroge Idah in Edo State then. Okechkwu Nwanguma and his co-travelers may or may not know of this fact about Parry Osayande’s person. In a nutshell, he is not a man of frivolity.
The fact of the matter here is that accuser of the Police Service Commission on the promotion of AIG Bala Hassan, submitted his material as news item, so, professionally speaking, Saharareporters should have made effort to get the AIG’s position on the allegation against his person. This they did not do and may never do. The question now is, whose agenda are they pursuing in their news organization? Perhaps, was it not for Punch Newspaper that presented the positions of Okpara and Bala Hassan, side by side, informed Nigerians would by now be calling for the head of citizen AIG Bala Hassan. Lucky Bala was even able to speak to Punch because investigation into the case between him and Okpara had been concluded by the Police authorities, and he was exonerated of the allegation against him. In AIG Bala Hassan’s response to Punch investigation, he revealed that Mr. Augustine Okpara is a dismissed Police Officer. The reason behind his dismissal by the Police authorities was based on stealing. This is what AIG Hassan said of NIPRIN’s client; — “Okpara duped UBA Choba of N48m in Port Harcourt; that is the genesis of this problem. The Force CID then arrested him and put Okpara’s vehicles there. Part of the stolen money was used to purchase those vehicles. Okpara is a dismissed policeman. He stole pipes when he was an ASP in Diobe and was dismissed from the force in 1995. —.
“We both joined the force on the same day in 1982; I as a Cadet ASP and Okpara as a Cadet Inspector. We were together at Leadership Training Centre in Jos. Knowing that I have impeccable credentials, he is just trying to discredit me. After his dismissal, Okpara started doing 419 to earn a living. The reports are there. So when the IG gave the directive that all cars parked at police divisions should be removed because of the threat of bombers, I informed the IG that the cars did not belong to the Rivers command and so we couldn’t auction them.
“Since the case belonged to the Force CID Abuja, they got a lawyer, who went to the court, got a court order and sent an auctioneer from Abuja to auction off the vehicles. Immediately Okpara came out of prison, the only thing he could do was to hold on to me. The IG who was in charge when the cars were auctioned has gone on retirement so Okpara cannot fight him. Okpara even said those cars were in my house but I don’t have need for auctioned vehicles. You should ask him why he was dismissed from the force. I am a lawyer, an advocate of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. How can it be that someone of Okpara’s standing that is trying to impugn my character?”
In situating AIG Bala Hassan’s position on the fraud committed by Okpara with the comment of Okpara himself in the Punch Newspaper, one will no doubt appreciate the beauty of story balancing in the interest of objectivity. Here, one can clearly see that the dimension of the case was outside the jurisdiction of Port Harcourt Police Division. Here is what Augustine Okpara said as reported in Punch;— The case was withdrawn from court due to a petition written by one of the five suspects, who was allegedly wrongly arrested and detained, and the Force CID in Alagbon, Lagos, took over the investigation.—. That Okpara was in prison was not in doubt, however, whether he was just remanded or serving one year prison term is not what this piece seeks to point out. Hear vintage Okpara again: “Some policemen came to my business centre but I wasn’t available. Then they called me on the phone and I went to the Rivers State Police Command only to be detained and tortured. I was made to appear in a Port Harcourt magistrate’s court, alongside the others, and granted bail. But because I couldn’t perfect it, I was remanded in prison for one year.”
Clearly, May 5, 2012 Punch publication provided rational minds the needed information to make informed decision on the matter. This writer dare say that the latest onslaught in Saharareporters. com against the Police Service Commission and AIG Bala Hassan has nothing to do with Okpara’s issue par see. Mr. Nwanguma led NOPRIN cannot get the attention of media that seek balancing of news report as a cardinal policy because the moment he does that, the person of his client will be made known to the world. This position probably informed his choice of Saharareporters. Information has it that when NOPRIN published its report in the site, AIG Bala Hassan tried to get across to Saharareporters to state his own side of the story, but was shut out. Another NGO sought to join issue with NOPRIN but was denied coverage by the same site.
Hassan’s impeccable academic credentials may be responsible for the mischief against his person. He is about one of the few senior police officers that can boost of six qualifications in Nigeria today. In policing, he has distinguished himself credibly well. Reports have it that he single handily brought kidnapping and associated crime to almost zero level in Rivers State when he held sway as the Commissioner of Police there. Similarly, in Edo State as Commissioner, he gave a good account of himself. The time he took over as police administrator in Borno State, he deployed internet tracking to fight terrorism. Report also indicates that he is not doing badly in his current position in Jos, as the Commandant of Police Staff College in Plateau State.
The current attacks on both the Police Service Commission [PSC] and AIG Bala Hassan is certainly the handy work of insider[s] in police who are not comfortable with his record in the force. They have come to see him as somebody who has a bright future ahead of him. This is probably what PSC under the leadership of Rtd. DIG Parry Osayande and the office of the Inspector General of Police had seen in the shenanigans by NOPRIN. One thing is certain, a dismissed police officer, Augustine Okpara cannot bring down an AIG of Bala Hassan’s status; equally, mischief makers cannot use him to achieve any evil end.
