Dear Oga Big Ben Oguntuase:
Special Adviser, Policy and Strategy
Ekiti State Government
I read your piece below titled “The Media and the Goebelian Fiendish Syndrome” with great interest.
It is not the first time that a sitting government (eg Ekiti State), a candidate (eg Hillary Clinton) or a person (eg Iyabo Obasanjo) has accused various sections of the media of bias AGAINST them, and/or bias FOR their opponents, and it will not be the last. So there is nothing extraordinarily paranoid in accusing three esteemed newspapers in one breath - first the Guardian, then the Punch and finally the Nation newspapers - of bias and even Goebbellsian conspiracy against the Ekiti administration of Segun Oni of which you are its hard-working Policy and Strategy Special Adviser.
Furthermore, that newspapers “spin” news periodically must be a surprise only to you: it is like that Casablancan police prefect who was acutely “surprised” that there were hookers in a particular hotel in his prefecture! That is why there are SEVERAL newspapers in the newsstand, and why the cautious person must read MANY of them to come to their full information and wise judgement about any one event.
But two things amused and alarmed me respectively in your piece: first an omission and a commission below
First your omission, but first let me start with this analogy: suppose a person is at a crime scene in which he is being urged to participate. He warns the people with criminal intent that they would be committing a crime and leaves the scene. Those with “criminal intent” go on to “successfully” commit the crime.
Should those who leave the scene now be blamed for the successful commission of the crime, whereafter the crime is deemed to have been “successfully committed” simply because of that leaving of the scene?
This is EXACTLY what happened on the day of the Speakership in Ekiti State, an information that you have Goebbellsianly omitted, and which the Judge too avoided. A clause “from the ruling party” was offensive to the AC members of the State Assembly, and they pointed out to the Assembly that it was illegal and unconstitutional, and that they would not participate in the selection of a speaker under that clause. They objected to an Assembly proceeding that was going to allow ONLY members “of the ruling party” to be put forward as CANDIDATES for the Speakership. At that point, since this was the very inaugural sitting of the Assembly, the Clerk - being the controlling official at that time and ostensibly working hand in glove with the “ruling party” - insisted that the election would go ahead, and so the AC members, all 13 of them, withdrew, leaving only the 13 members of the “ruling party” to do the dastardly deed.
First, in a presidential party, there is no set “ruling party” - or in a very careless manner, one can say that there can be different “ruling parties” in the Executive and in the Legislature. In Ekiti, yes, Segun Oni’s contested executive administration is of the PDP, but in the Ekiti Legislature, where there are 13 AC and 13 PDP, hence there was and is no “RULING PARTY.” The Executive is CLEARLY different from the Legislature in the “separation of powers” principle of the Presidential system. Secondly, now that the Judge Akeju himself has ruled that the controlling clause “from the ruling party” is illegal, he has FULLY justified the acts of 13 AC members in REFUSING to participate in an illegality in which they were being forced. For Judge Akeju to then rule that the presence of a QUORUM does not invalidate the choosing of the Speaker is to present a HOWLER of a judgment. It is giving clear and overt blessing to a crime, and such a ruling should not stand the test of legal appeal.
Let me next move to your commission. With all due respect, it a fascist one that I am completely ashamed that you proposed, knowing you fully well, including even your pro-democratic credentials during the Abacha administration and June 12.
Due to the fact that you believe that some publication was NOT in your favor, and simply BECAUSE you THINK that the publication MIGHT cause “WIDESPREAD PANDEMONIUM”, you asked that the Judge issue a SUMMONS to “arrest the newspaper” - like the soldiers who threatened to “Arrest the Music!” against Fela ?
Really? From you, Mr. Ben Oguntuase? Is this what a government job does to one, to lose your reputation for democratic zeal?
How many newspapers are there in Nigeria? How many so reported? Where is the EVIDENCE of “widespread pandemonium” - or is it just your fear of such pandemonium that should lead to arrest of the Editor, the sub-editor, the writer, and everybody? Purging them from the newspapers by jailing them?
The irony is that there is nothing more Goebellsian that what you have just proposed. I end with a historical reference that Goebbel himself was familiar with - the “Night of the Long Knives”:
QUOTE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives
The Night of the Long Knives (German: Nacht der langen Messer (help·info)) or “Operation Hummingbird”, was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany between June 30 and July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime executed at least 85 people for political reasons. Most of those killed were members of the “Storm Troopers” (SA) (German: Sturmabteilung), a Nazi paramilitary organization. Adolf Hitler moved against the SA and its leader, Ernst Röhm, because he saw the independence of the SA and the penchant of its members for street violence as a direct threat to his power. Hitler also wanted to forestall any move by leaders of the Reichswehr, the German military, who both feared and despised the SA, to curtail his rule, especially since Röhm made no secret of his ambition to absorb the Reichswehr with himself at its head. Finally, Hitler used the purge to act against conservative critics of his regime, especially those loyal to Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, and to settle scores with old enemies.
At least 85 people died during the purge, although the final death toll may have been in the hundreds,[1][2] and more than a thousand perceived opponents were arrested.[1] Most of the killings were carried out by the Schutzstaffel (SS), an elite Nazi corps, and the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei), the regime’s secret police. The purge strengthened and consolidated the support of the Reichswehr for Hitler. It also provided a cloak of legality for the Nazi regime, as the German courts and cabinet quickly swept aside centuries of legal prohibition against extra-judicial killings to demonstrate their loyalty to the regime.
Before its execution, its planners sometimes referred to it as “Hummingbird” (German: Kolibri), as that was the codeword used to set the execution squads in motion on the day of the purge.[3] The codename for the operation appears to have been chosen arbitrarily. The phrase “Night of the Long Knives” in the German language predates the massacre itself, and it also refers generally to acts of vengeance. Its origin might be the “Night of the Long Knives”, a massacre of Vortigern’s men by Angle, Jute, and Saxon mercenaries in Arthurian myth.[citation needed] To this day, Germans still use the term “Röhm-Putsch” to describe the event, as that was the term the Nazi regime introduced into the language at the time, despite its false implication that the murders were necessary to forestall a coup. To emphasize this, German authors often use quotation marks or write about the so-called Röhm-Putsch. [4]
UNQUOTE
So, Oga Ben, please do your job, but remember that there is life after this particular job.
Accept my sincere best wishes. We both used to be in Christ’s School, and as our Principal Chief Rufus Ogunlade used to tell us in school, “And all this shall pass away…..”
Bolaji Aluko
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