THE Nigerian Observer newspaper’s plight was highlighted by some fearless journalists at a recent interactive session of media practitioners with information handlers for Edo Government in Benin. If you listened to the 7pm news of NTA Benin on January 8, 2016 you will understand what I am saying.
Mr. Nasamu Jacobson was chairman of the event. Viewers should have noticed that he maintained a calm, palace, dignified silence as the hosted journalists sympathized with the lot of The Nigerian Observer. Don’t blame him for his silent mode. He knows more about the challenges of the state government-owned newspaper than the critical journalists. A staid spinster cannot chronicle the harrowing experiences of the labour ward to a nursing mother.
All said, I salute the media’s courage to spotlight the trials of The Nigerian Observer. I also commend journalists for empathizing with the newspaper. The spirit of camaraderie will always flow in the veins of every journalist because they see The Nigerian Observer as one of their own.
Having said this, let me affirm here with Korede Bello’s permission that God is always winning at The Nigerian Observer. This is because since its inception on May 29, 1968 the media outfit has been jumping and passing several hurdles even during the military era. So, if the newspaper survived this harsh periods, it will certainly do so in our present civilian clime. That is why the paper is trudging on with steady, unshakable strides today. A tree that survived a deciduous, dry military climate can never die from the civilian sweep of social darwinism against it.
One upon a time General Yakubu Gowon in the heat of the Nigerian civil war (1966 – 1970) threatened to deal with The Nigerian Observer. Why? It was because the newspaper took Gowon to the cleaners with a comment titled FATHERLAND IN TEARS. It lampooned him for staging an elaborate reception at Dodan Barracks, Lagos during his marriage to Victoria at a time Nigeria was at war. Well, the newspaper outlived the military threat from Gowon who fell from office in 1975
However, unknown to the paper, one of Gowon’s home boy and then military governor of Rivers State, Navy Commander Alfred Diete Spiff “inherited” the diabolical threat gene from Gowon. Hence, when the paper carried a harmless story on public workers’ strike on his birthday, Alfred Diete-Spiff arrested Minere Amakiri, the paper’s correspondent in Rivers State. He detained him and thereafter had the hair on Amakiri’s head shaved with a broken bottle. But not to worry. Alfred Diete-Spiff was removed from office also in 1975 like Gowon.
In 1975, The Nigerian Observer still got another bashing from the military. Mr. Sam Eguaveon, editor of the paper, accurately predicted the 1976 coup against General Murtala Mohammed in his incisive column in which he observed that “no man can hurry the sunrise.” Following this, he was sacked after being accused of having an insider’s foreknowledge of the coup. His removal from office didn’t do any organic damage to the newspaper. Rather, the event strengthened the resolve of the outfit to continue the ethical practice of publishing the truth and be prepared to be damned.
Behold, the military guns could not blunt, the paper’s pen. For General Ibrahim Babangida in 1994 descended on The Nigerian Observer with a sledge hammer and closed it down along with some newspapers in the South-Western axis of Nigeria. Their “offence” was that they were vociferously demanding the actualization of Chief M.K.O. Abiola’s mandate to rule Nigeria as a civilian president after winning the June 12, 1993 election by popular acclaim.
Of course, no mortal on earth can bury the truth espoused by The Nigerian Observer during the June 12 democratic struggle. Truth always win. So, faced with it, Babangida fled from office in 1994. Shonekan, who succeeded him directed that The Nigerian Observer and other newspapers shut down by the fleeing Babangida should be re-opened immediately. Hey abracadabra!! The Nigerian Observer outlived Babangida just as it had done to Gowon, Alfred Diete-Spiff and even Obasanjo’s heartless military regime. It had called for Mr. Sam Eguavoen’s head for predicting in his Observer Column the fall of General Murtala Mohammed. The Nigerian Observer is a long distance runner. It never tires while its pursuers are hundred meters, gangling athletes with weak sprints who need oxygen bags even before breasting the tape. How you are!!
Enter retire Justice Akhigbe, a one-time Chief Judge of Bendel State. Because The Nigerian Observer published a features article in early 1991 on the parlous state of Bendel judiciary, the judge mobilized against the paper. But the paper survived the vicious assault. He forgot that in the uncertain probalistic game of life, an old soldier like The Nigerian Observer never dies. It trudges on as long as there are wars to be fought. War is the cellgevity and antioxidant which eliminate the free radicals shortening the life of the younger soldier. Indeed, wars make The Nigerian Observer stronger, ageless and more imbued with the survivalist media instinct.
How about late Lt. Col. Mohammed Onuka, former military governor of Edo State in early 1991? He invited the editors of The Nigeria Observer to Government House, Benin and began to rain insults on them for reports he labeled as anti-government. Hmm, the radical, fearless editors ignored him even with his military uniforms. Silence is the best answer, agreed the editors in symbiotic subconscious reasoning. When the mouth of a frog is filled with protest it doesn’t croak. Indeed, there is always an ordinance store of information bombs in the hands of state-owned media practitioners which they keep. Chief executives of states usually don’t know this until they leave office to their own peril. And, so, that is why it is important Chief executives of states care for their home journalists just as they do to correspondents in their states. Unfortunately late Lt. Col. Mohammed Onuka didn’t realize this sublime fact until he left office. The correspondents, whose love he cultivated, then exposed his excesses and The Nigerian Observer joined the fray. He complained to me about the fray. He complained to me about the media scenario when I ran into him in Kaduna. My response? I told him:
“ Oga, you are reaping what you sowed. If you helped Observer when you were in office, the newspaper would have been loyal to you. But then you abandoned the paper. See, let me tell you. Journalists, whether they work in state-owned newspapers or not have the same venomous pen for running our of office any chief executive … today or tomorrow!!”
So far, so good. Now, it is time to descend from my past Olympic heights of Afghanistanism to current realisties at The Nigerian Observer. My weatherman tells me that the newspaper needs help from the state government so as to stabilise the climate there. The paper should be given a soft IGR target; utility vehicles for editors and general transport purposes; as well as a new power plant. Also, the newspaper house’s production /editorial departments should be retooled and well staffed.
While waiting for these goodies, I must point out that The Nigerian Observer is achieving its motto of letting the people know the truth. If you don’t think so, hear this advice from Mr. Peter Erherhe of EBS, Benin. The advice: “If someone says he cannot see anything good in what you are doing, hug him. Then tell him that life is really difficult for the blind.”
