KWENU: Our Culture, Our Future

CNN and coup d'état

M. O. Ené
 egbedaa@aol.com
 Wednesday, February 13, 2002

Dividends of democracy are bigger and better than morsels of militarism. It is so because absolute power has a way of corrupting the possessor beyond easy reach. Consequently, ancient Africans instituted communal governance, where everyone has a stake in the community. The community itself is enjoined to create the children of its future, not leave it to biological parents. So, say it or spin it, any system of governance that promotes popular participation is inherently superior to faith or forced rules. What we have in Nigeria is a rainbow of rules, a wide spectrum of the worst and the best amalgamated on a colonial contraption. But that's a whole new different topic.

An acquaintance stopped me last week and wondered when I was going to praise the present regime for the good things it has done. I told him that the government can afford to blow its own horns, that we owe it to those who read to revisit areas where more work is needed. Anyway, I assured him that I would search some good deeds and comment on them this week because if you call your pot "common," your neighbors will use it to pack puppy poop. So said my ancestors. What do you do when your neighbors know that you actually use the pot to pack poop and tell their own neighbors what transpires in your open backyard? Do you go down the street screaming "it wasn't me," or do you sit your family down and do something about the stinking stuff oozing out of the pot of crap?

Nigerian state authorities have steadily jettisoned any semblance of balanced media management and information dissemination, in which, by the way, they should not heavily invest. But they do; in fact, government's control of television and radio is rivaled only by communist China. The bias of federal/state news outlets has always been infamous, but it has now reached a new annoying level of propaganda. So what do people do in a world that is fast becoming a global village? They turn to wherever dependable news is available. And CNN is on tap.

Cable News Network (CNN) is the leader in global TV news dissemination, even with the poaching attack from Fox Network of Aussie-born Mr. Rupert Murdoch. CNN has become an institution, the essence of cable television, if you are not a fan of "world wrestling." After the Gulf War, CNN became a must-watch for people around the world. And it reached out, piping in news from local English-speakers reporters. Recently, it truly reported that some Lagos residents -- in the aftermath of February, 1 Hausa-Yoruba ethnic class that claimed over 100 lives, over 200 wounded, and properties destroyed -- were yearning for the military to come back and rule Nigeria. The New York Times also relayed the report, and Nigeria's vibrant web publishers quickly linked up. We saw; we clicked; we read.

The story: Lagos State Governor Alhaji (Senator) Ahmed Bola Tinubu went visiting his constituents in Idi-Araba four days after the mayhem. This was on Wednesday, February 4, 2002. No, he couldn't make it earlier, not when the mayhem was reportedly spreading to Mushin, Onipanu, Agege, and Bariga. As was the case with the visit of President Obasanjo a week earlier to the scene of Ikeja bomb blast, some vocal victims of senseless strife, reportedly chanted pro-military slogans: "We want soldiers! We want soldiers! No more democracy." The governor was quick to respond nicely without stepping out of his car in his own state: "You can see that some people are trying to use you to destroy yourselves and democratic governance in the country."

Last weekend, "youths, traders and associations" in Port Harcourt, Rivers State and Jos, Plateau State (read, rent-a-mob assembly) "demonstrated" against "the offensive CNN report on Nigerian democracy." What a waste of time and energy! What a useless 'fun-fooling' of the masses! How many of those assembled have the sleek, wall television politicians parade in their newly "opened" homes? How many of them get CNN in their carton-size television sets? How many of them get NEPA juice to light their homes, let alone power their television sets long enough to finish watching Senegal humiliate the clay-footed giant of Africa? How many of them grasp half of the issues analyzed in CNN's shows of talking heads? My point: I am not for a feel-good demonstration against a news organization that owes Nigeria absolutely nothing, especially when it did not fabricate the call for coup nor encourage its implementation.

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, for lack of better things to do, weighs in with condemnation: "With this type of report, the CNN is doing a grievous harm to its hard-built reputation of fair reporting, including the coverage of popular democratic struggles in the country." [Labour flays CNN report on clashes, The Guardian, Monday, February 11, 2002.] Oshiomhole said of the report: "It is misleading and criminal for anyone to suggest that Nigerians wanted an overthrow of the democratic system which they had labored so hard to build." Good point. But, did CNNreport that ALL Nigerians wanted to overthrow the "labored" democracy? I don't think so. The report showed a group of Nigerians yearning to peace and security. Without security, there will be no peace and no justice. This comrade needs to speak with Rev. Al Sharpton. It is not always what you call your system of governance that counts, it is what you do in and with it.

Do we want the military to return? In my paternal village, we ask the peripatetic diviner what he brought from his various travels, not what he ate out there. The politicians in Abuja are not even telling us what they eat out there, and the President does not know! To me, whatever system best serves a people is better than a copycat system that does no good. Ordinary Nigerians are not too keen on forms of state political control. As Alexander Pope put it: "For forms of government let fools contest; whate'er is best administr'd is best." African militarism is fast becoming an anachronism; politicians look more appealing to the whole world. However, popular democracy without addressing the fundamentals of Nigerian federalism is like building a house of cards on top of a tunnel: The house will collapse with the first train that zooms across.

Oshiomhole said CNN gave "the impression that…. Nigeria [is] better off with military dictatorship." No one who watches CNN for a week will buy into such a silly statement. The CNN as a news organization does not dictate systems of governance. It has people who espouse all sorts of opinions and no one, to my knowledge, is denied access. The last time our dear President Obasanjo featured, he was supposed to tell them about 2003; rather, he declared that God would pilot him! We cannot all get up to speak there, but we can always make our feelings known, and so should Nigerians who feel offended by any news report. They should articulate their points and present them, not organize rent-a-mob demonstrations in carefully selected cities. The last time I checked, people in Aba and Kaduna do get CNN; I didn't hear nor read of their demonstrations. If the Nigerian government has any regards for people it sends out here, it should have asked them to contact the CNN and rebut. But there is really nothing to rebut: The news report is as accurate as any other worldwide.

It is no need arguing that OPC, APC, Egbesu, Tiv-Jukun clashes, religious riots in Kano, Kafanchan, Kaduna, Zango-Kataf, and all the problems existed in the last military rule. That's not CNN's problem. That these issues existed during the military juntas and are now exploding in a democracy is an indictment of the practitioners of partisan politics, not an excuse. If the government cannot pay people in its employment, including the police and soldiers, I wonder why it is called a government. It's almost three years gone and nothing penetrates the ears of politicians. Well, the stubborn chicken will hear in a pot of soup.

Coups d'état are a terrible human phenomenon; they ruin human resources and sour the soul of nations. But, as Oscar Wilde put it: "Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority." There is nothing heroic about taking over state power by force; yet there is nothing hideous about a coup that ends political farce. The problem here is the thin line between military musclemen and political parasites, between military messiahs and political prophets.

For the next stop in this inevitable merry-go-round, Comrade Oshiomhole has declared: "The Nigeria Labour Congress warns that there will be a general strike and an uprising if anybody attempts an unconstitutional takeover and that such a strike and uprising shall not be called off until democratic rule is restored." Good talk. We will file the statement away; hopefully, we won't need to revisit it. If the need ever arises, this much I can tell you: Oshiomhole and his cabinet will not be far from the front row of the army of sycophantic dittoheads congratulating the brand new major-to-be-general. Five years thence, many of the fast-breed, rich baby-generals will be sitting in the senate!

The only way we can stop such clamor for military rule -- assuming government wants to stop it -- is to guarantee the safety of lives and properties nationwide. The menace of OPC is becoming a phenomenal embarrassment. This is the only ethnic militia that enjoys open patronage of parochial politicians anywhere in Nigeria. And it comes from the mountaintop of Aso Rock and from local establishments in the valley. Those who kill and maim their fellow citizens, in the north or in the south -- east or west, must bear the blame if they make the predictable putsch possible. It is predictable because those who refuse to bow to peaceful change have made violence a way of life.

Now, instead of addressing the root of the disease, the government chops off the supposedly diseased sensors. Minister of Information Professor Jerry Gana  leads the assault. He just succeeded in running out of Nigeria CNN correspondent, Kenyan-born Jeff Koinage. [Government Wants CNN Reporter Removed, ThisDay (Lagos) February 12, 2002] Read him: "I asked him to give me the direct number of his boss in Atlanta in the United States and I told him (the boss) pointblank that the image of CNN was at stake in Nigeria if this correspondent was not transferred." Failing to do so, Gana threatened to declare Koinage persona-non-grata and  to deport him. Bravo, Professor Minister! Do we still call this a democracy or what, a country of law and not of men with fragile egos? You can kill the messenger, but not the message. Not even pre-Gorbachev USSR was this brutal, crude, rude, and mean.

I pray to my ancestors and hope that the likes of Ifeajuna and Nzeogwu and Onwuatuegwu and Gbulie sit out this millennium "wetie," even if it kills them. Caning and canning CNN, meanwhile, merely molest and maim the messenger -- not mangle nor  mar the message: This democracy is defective; and we know it.

Everything else is embellishment.