Read journalist Femi Owolabi’s
incisive and different argument below…
Sometime in February, at an interactive session– in Ikogosi
Warm Springs Resort– with Kayode Fayemi, governor of Ekiti State, one of the
participants– as many raised-hands jostled—was picked by the moderator to ask
the governor his question. Nicholas Ibekwe, he would announce as his name. With
an aura of confidence, he added, “I work with Premium Times.” His voice carried
so much energy and his question[s] was punchy. Nicholas appeared as the
pugnacious type. You would notice this immediately he began to talk, gesturing
more frankly. Where I sat, a close distance to his seat, I nodded in
admiration. This guy should replace one of those journalists who babysit Goodluck
Jonathan during the presidential media chats. It is not certain if Goodluck
will survive Nicholas.
There was something I was going to
ask Nicholas after the session.
A month earlier, Nicholas’ Premium Times published an
investigative report, Inside Nigeria’s Ruthless Human Trafficking Mafia. It was
a report that overwhelmed one with sadness. A few days later, however, critical
observers began to expose the faults in the story everybody had bought. The
most vocal of these observers was the literary critic, Ikhide Ikheloa. “This
story is a faabu,” Ikhide, on his Twitter and Facebook timelines, screamed
morning, day, and night. He would eventually produce an article, Tobore
Ovuorie’s story: Fact or fiction? The critical pieces of evidence Ikheloa
provided in that piece to suggest the story a fiction, are too weighty to be
discarded. He ended with the line; ‘There are many reasons to confront this
story, its veracity being the least, but still a crucial reason to deal with
it. The credibility of a nation is pretty much gone, but once our journalists
lose their credibility, it is all over.’
Day in, day out, Ikheloa would not relent. In every of his
Facebook post, he pulled out the Managing Editors of Premium Times– Dapo
Olorunyomi and Musikilu Mojeed– by the nape of their neck, to apologize to
Nigerians for publishing what he called a fake story.
Later that evening in Ikogosi, as participants trooped to
the poolside, where we go to lounge, I hastened my movement to meet Ibekwe who
was ahead.
“Someone is discrediting an investigative report by Tobore
Ovuore, one of your reporters at Premium Times,” I opened the conversation with
Nicholas after we had exchanged handshakes. “He calls your bosses out every day
in his Facebook mentions to whip them. I don’t like the way Ikhide is going
about; rubbishing your newspaper which had become a household name, being a
reliable news source.”
I needed a point from Nicholas (the man I had seen as a
no-nonsense journalist from Premium Times), which I intended to use in a Facebook
post to rebut Ikheloa’s criticism.
Nicholas looked at me, almost dismissively. He, however,
managed to tell me that he knew nothing about all that. We couldn’t talk
further as I left his side. That was the first and only time I had seen
Nicholas Ibekwe.
If you do not know Nicholas Ibekwe, he is currently the most
talked about Premium Times journalist who ‘exposed’ the bribery deal between
popular Nigerian pastor, T.B Joshua and the journalists who went to his Synagogue
Church of All Nation, where a collapsed building killed many. I have followed
Nicholas’ tweets as they were consistently retweeted into my Twitter timeline.
He is angry about many things; that Lagos Governor Fashola met with Joshua
behind closed doors, and after the meeting, dodged reporters, and perhaps his
most prioritized anger; how Joshua offered N50,000 bribe to each journalist at
the press conference of September 14. He soon released a recording of the
bribery deal he had alleged. And then, on the 23rd of September [yesterday], he
eventually came out with his story: “Why I exposed T.B. Joshua for bribing
journalists.”
So, why did Nicholas publish the audio? “…when I woke up last
Saturday morning and saw the picture of President Goodluck Jonathan shaking
hands with a grinning TB Joshua with headlines like ‘Jonathan consoles TB
Joshua,’ I said damn it! I couldn’t stomach this blatant impunity.”
“Journalists shouldn’t be seen or heard telling the prime
suspect they would write ‘just like you said’ after he offered to buy their
consciences with N50, 000,” he also said.
I hadn’t listened to the audio. But in Nicholas’ story
published in Premium Times, the audio was reproduced. I reached for my earpiece
and gave that audio a rapt attention. Four minutes or there about. Perhaps I
didn’t get the real thing, I played it again. And then, again. Time wouldn’t
allow me, I would have transcribed here. Only first-class thinkers would agree
with me. That audio I listened to has nothing to do with a bribery deal. Wait,
you can call for my head later. Go back to that audio and listen again! In the
audio, we hear Joshua announcing some 750k; to be shared, 50k each to
journalists, to fuel their car. Some ask questions about the issue at hand, and
Joshua– in a tone that depicts sobriety– answers them. And, as they round off,
Joshua asks, ‘So, what are you going to write?’ and they all laugh at what seem
a sarcastic remark from Joshua. I laughed, too.
In his story, however, Nicholas argued, “He clearly meant
for the money to influence the reporting of the event, ‘So what are you going
to write?’” he had asked. That makes it a bribe. Simple.’
Your head is in the air. Such is the problem when you are
highly opinionated. By what logical conclusion do we pronounce that bribery?
Let me quickly state that it is wrong for Governor Fashola
and President Jonathan to be seen patting Joshua’s shoulder over the collapsed
building that was largely his fault. And of course, this is not an attempt to
write in defence of Joshua. If you care to know, I may soon renounce my
membership of the Pentecostal movement, following many atrocities within this
Movement that do not stand well with me.
We are only stupid to assume 750k is money enough a bribe
from T.B Joshua to hush journalists. The story was already in the mainstream
media. I have watched NEMA PRO on Channels TV lamenting the difficulties they
were having with T.B Joshua’s church authority. All had become clearer that
there was illegal addition of storeys to the building which eventually resulted
in the collapse. And even Joshua himself knows that the ‘hovering craft’ tale
is not buyable. So, why exactly would he bribe journalists with 750k?
What is my point? That 50k is appropriately called
honorarium. If after the announcement of that 50k for journalists to fuel their
car and that Nicholas had rejected, he was then called back to further
negotiate an increase, then it becomes a bribe! They are desperate about hiding
something! Oxford dictionary helps us with the definition of an honorarium: ‘A
payment given for professional services that are rendered nominally without
charge.’ T.B. Joshua is no fool to think 750k is okay to bribe journalists so
the story is not exposed. That is simply honorarium, and it follows the
tradition of the church.
On the other hand, Oxford dictionary says this about bribe:
‘A sum of money or other inducement offered or given to bribe someone.’ Is
Nicholas insinuating that 50k to fuel his car poses a bribery threat? Is it
that Nicholas couldn’t have accepted that 50k and still go ahead to publish his
investigative findings? When such honorariums are doled out, no journalist is
held by any obligatory terms to accept. Depending on the circumstances
surrounding the story, I, as a [freelance] journalist may accept or reject such
honorarium. It would take the next lifetime to have me bribed so I won’t expose
a story. If you decide to force the ‘honorarium’ on me, I will take it. I have
a network of friends whose stomachs are an empty tank of beer. They will beer
with that money and that story you are desperate in hiding from the public
would have a smooth ride to the press.
Many people are aware of my affiliation with the APC, and
admiration for Kayode Fayemi. The report I did for The Scoop after the Ekiti
governorship election did not, in a single sentence, favour APC and the party’s
flag-bearer, Fayemi. My editor was worried. He wanted a balanced feel in the
report. “Do you mean you couldn’t find anybody who spoke well of the APC
candidate?” he asked me before pushing the report for publishing. I knew I
could not write it with the bias I have for the APC.
In the May 1994 edition of the American Journalism Review,
Alicia C. Shepard writes; ‘Critics say that taking money from groups falling
under a reporter’s purview raises all sorts of potential conflicts of interest
or, at least, the appearance of one. The money also raises questions about a
reporter’s objectivity.’ So, like Nicholas, if I were at the meeting with T.B
Joshua, I would have rejected the honorarium offer. But, I will not refer to it
as bribe.
The globally recognized Associated Press, AP, recognises
this honorarium thing. On [s], under the heading, AP News Values &
Principles, we read this: ‘Associated Press offices and staffers are often sent
or offered gifts of other items—some of them substantial, some of them modest,
some of them perishable—by sources, public relations agencies, corporations and
others.’
‘Sometimes these are designed to encourage or influence AP news
coverage or business, sometimes they are just ‘perks’ for journalists covering
a particular event. Whatever the intent, we cannot accept such items; an
exception is made for trinkets like caps or mugs that have nominal value,
approximately $ 25 or less. Otherwise, gifts should be politely refused and
returned, or if that is impracticable, they should be given to charity.’
End of discussion? I know some would say this is an attempt
to euphemistically rebrand bribe as honorarium. If you are of this thought, I
borrow the words of Nicholas and I throw them at you, ‘I can’t help you if you
can’t decipher that. I am a reporter not a brain surgeon.’
Well, bribery is a criminal offense. And if Nicholas insists
this is a bribe deal, he shouldn’t hesitate in writing the lawyer, Femi Falana,
on the need to take this case up.
It is no news, that journalists in Nigeria are underpaid.
Nicholas, in his story, admits this. According to [yesterday], a [USA]
journalist earns an average salary of $ 36,834 per year. According to me, a
Nigerian journalist’s pay in a year is around $ 6,000. It is not totally a bad
pay. What is bad is the delay and irregularities in the payment. While I was
covering Osun election, I interviewed an academic, Babatunde Bakare, at the
Bowen University. I didn’t know him from anywhere. After the interview, he
asked me how I was surviving as a journalist. I told him I have other things
that I do that pay my bills. Even though I wasn’t seriously investigating any
story, I was just seeking the opinion of an academic on the election, Babatunde
felt obliged to give me something to support my transport and logistics. He
would later tell me that until his recent appointment as an academic, he was a
senior producer/scriptwriter for one of Africa’s largest TVs, AIT. And he
wasn’t paid salary in the last ten months he had worked with AIT.
I also stopped taking Sam Nda-Isaiah’s presidential ambition
seriously the day I heard he owed his reporters at Leadership Newspaper, four
month salary. It took a Twitter/Facebook protest to get Sam to bow to his
employees’ demands. These delays, irregularities, underpayment, are not
justifiable reasons to accept bribe. No, they are not. These reasons, however,
justify the collection of an honorarium, such type that does not mean you
should report a black story as white.
Nicholas, then, advises journalists to ‘explore other
related and legitimate means of making money like researching, writing, and
editing reports for NGO…’ This is the silliest of all advices. Journalism is a
professional job. The burden of researching, investigating a story, is already
time consuming. News are time bound, and Nicholas risks his job with Premium
Times if he fails to beat deadlines for the kind of ‘pending stories’ he
mentions in his piece. I make money as a private academic researcher. The
months I have more than two research jobs, I suspend my journalistic
activities. And the day I become a full time journalist, I should resign as a
researcher. Journalistic work is enough work to get enough pay if things were
right.
As I conclude, I should raise an issue. After the three day
media/blogger interactive forum in Ekiti in February, participants were each
offered 50k honorarium by the organizers. My name is Femi Owolabi. I received
the N50,000 (of course it never influenced my subsequent criticisms. Many who
also accepted the money had asked Governor Kayode Fayemi harsher questions
during the forum and even wrote critically about his policies after we had
left). However, Stanley Azuakola, the editor of The Scoop and Chinedu Ekeke,
the editor of Ekekeee in their separate critical reports, revealed that they
politely rejected the N50,000. Out of about thirty participants, Nicholas
Ibekwe inclusive, I am yet to read of any other apart from Stanley, Chinedu and
Stanley Achonu (the Operations Lead of BudgIT), who didn’t take that N50,000
honorarium. It is, therefore, logical to believe that Nicholas Ibekwe, who now
accuses his fellow journalists of bribery when it was honorarium, received such
in February in Ekiti.
If he didn’t receive that money,
here is my apology in advance.
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