LATEST UPDATE: Theodore Orji: Governor in search of enemies
It is unthinkable that in the 21st century, a Nigerian journalist would be picked up by power-hungry police officers drafted from another state to undertake a yeoman’s job for a governor in another faraway state.
That’s exactly what happened nearly two weeks ago to Ebere Wabara, a journalist, who works for The Sun newspaper. He was snatched from his home in Lagos on Friday, 28 March, 2014, placed in handcuffs lest he disappears miraculously from his captors, and driven in a decrepit police vehicle to Umuahia where he was held against his will.
You would think that a man, who was treated this way must have committed a high crime against the nation. Wabara is an unassuming journalist, who committed the offence of telling the public how the government of Theodore Orji has failed to deliver his promises to the people of Abia State seven years since he was elected into office. Should that constitute the reason for the arrest and harsh treatment meted to Wabara?
Ironically, Governor Orji’s antecedents suggest he would serve as a humble governor, a listening governor, who is committed to promote the welfare, security and wellbeing of the people of Abia State. No one expected Orji to gag the press and to intimidate journalists, who freely express their views. We live in a democracy. Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states categorically that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression – and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any medium and regardless of frontiers”.
Governor Orji should learn to tolerate criticisms. Criticisms will strengthen his government because they will identify areas where his government has been sluggish and negligent. Unfortunately, some state governors perceive criticisms as a toxin that must be destroyed and disposed of promptly. This is why Ebere Wabara’s reports are regarded in the Abia State Government House as harmful. Rather than engage the journalist in an absorbing, intellectual, and well informed debate, the governor and the police chose the path of dishonour by adopting brutish, uncivilised and thuggish tactics to intimidate, harass and threaten Wabara for performing his job.
If Governor Orji and his assistants cannot handle press criticisms, they should quit their job. Criticism is a part of a democratic society. No governor, president or vice-president has successfully restrained the press from expressing critical comments in a democratic society.
In 1973, Rivers State military governor, Alfred Diete-Spiff, ordered the public bashing and head shaving of Minere Amakiri, the state correspondent of the Nigerian Observer newspaper. Amakiri’s crime was that he reported the strike action by the state teachers union, who were owed months of unpaid salaries. Incidentally, the report was published on 30 July, 1973, the governor’s birthday. Governor Diete-Spiff decided to teach Amakiri a lesson he would never forget. It was British playwright William Shakespeare, who wrote that it is excellent to have a giant’s strength but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.
The arrest, brutal treatment and detention of Amakiri on the orders of Governor Diete-Spiff tarnished the image of the governor forever. He was depicted in newspaper reports across the world, as a bully, who brought the journalism profession into disrepute. Incidentally, that action lifted the profile of Amakiri, as a courageous journalist and a role model for other journalists.
Like Amakiri of 1973, Wabara committed the crime of identifying the failures of the Abia State governor, who promised to perform miracles but has so far shown little or nothing since 2007 when he was elected. The siege mentality, which Nigerian journalists suffered during military dictatorship is still in operation even in our current democratic government.
Just in case Wabara thinks he has woken up from a terrible incubus in the past one week, he was quickly slapped with a 10-count charge of sedition, a law that doesn’t exist anymore in our statutes. Could it be that the police, who are performing this ludicrous job for Governor Orji are not aware of our current laws or could it be that, in their prejudiced mind, any charge, relating to any infraction hung on Wabara’s neck would stick?
Whoever resurrected the obsolete law of sedition and advised that it should be imposed on Wabara has done the Abia State Police Command, Governor Orji and his assistants a great disservice. That action has severely diminished the image of the governor and his legal advisers. They are now being mocked in the public sphere for demonstrating crass ignorance of the law.
Governor Orji perceives press criticisms of his government, as a strategy designed to question his authority. The way he used the police to harass Wabara fitted nicely the core character trait of a dictator. Dictatorial governors see critics not only as enemies of their governments but also as social pests. They believe they can bash, harass, intimidate, threaten and even incarcerate journalists who pester their governments.
The Abia State governor should learn from history. Despite his shenanigans and his contempt for and hateful comments against journalists, Olusegun Obasanjo was openly criticised by journalists for his lacklustre performance during the second term of his presidency. Obasanjo’s inappropriate style of leadership provided journalists with easy material for hostile commentary. He was insulted, pilloried and abused by the press. If Obasanjo was hurt, he didn’t show it but he never vacillated before he showered journalists with his acerbic saliva.
Libertarian and utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill argued persuasively in the 18th century for an “open marketplace of ideas” where the “weak and the strong”, men and women, “minorities and majorities” should freely express themselves and seek the truth. Mill was an advocate of unhindered freedom of expression. His widely regarded argument was that a society that gags an opinion stifles the truth because a wrong opinion may contain some elements of truth necessary to establish the whole truth. Mill must have shifted in his grave when men from the Abia State police command raided the home of Ebere Wabara and whisked him away in handcuffs because he dared to report on the mediocre performance of Governor Orji.
Wabara is not the first and he will not be the last journalist to suffer indignity at the hands of the police. Attacks on Nigerian journalists by the police and elected officials are growing. This is why Jean-Francois Julliard, secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders, a global non-governmental organisation that advocates press freedom for journalists, warned that “Nigeria is not a safe place for journalists to work.” The country ranks 145th out of the 178 countries in the Reporters Without Borders world press freedom index.
It seems that democracy has not tempered the repressive strategy with which the police deal with journalists. In times of military rule and civilian rule, Nigerian journalists suffered physical attacks, incarceration, unlawful detention and harassment from the police. Police assaults on journalists are paradoxical for the reason that the police represent law and order, and the protection of lives and property. The relationship between the police and journalists has soured because of the authoritative and insensitive behaviour of the police.
While the police are known to protect civil society in many countries, that is not the case in Nigeria. The Abia State police command and Governor Orji have attained notoriety because of the way they arrested a journalist who committed no offence and charged him with an archaic law that was expunged from our law books many years ago. The joke is now on the governor and his police enforcers.
The struggle for freedom of the press in Nigeria is looking ever more like a revolutionary warfare between journalists (press freedom advocates) and tyrannical governors and power-obsessed police officers.
It is fashionable for political leaders to talk about the essential role the media play in the promotion of democracy and socio-economic development. Ironically, the same leaders lack the guts to allow journalists to perform their job unimpeded by state officials. For Nigerian journalists to perform their role in society, they need to operate in an environment that allows them the freedom to tell the truth, to report daily events without obstruction, without political interference, without political intimidation, without harassment and without threats to their lives. These are just some of the constraints that confront Nigerian journalists in the 21st century.
How journalists function and the extent to which they are able to perform their role in society can be determined from the amount of freedom they enjoy. A press harassed by the government and the police, as in the case of Ebere Wabara, Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State, and the state police command, is not a free press. A press without the basic freedom to operate responsibly in society makes no meaningful contribution to the growth of democracy.
Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan once preached the importance of independent journalists across the world. He said: “journalists work on the front-lines of history, unravelling the tangle of events, giving them shape… Their tools are words and images; their credo is free expression; and their efforts empower all of us, individuals and societies alike…Yet for doing this indispensable work, many journalists are persecuted, attacked, imprisoned and murdered.”
Irritable Governor Orji and the Abia State police command should hear this.
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