Obi at the NGE conference

Last Friday, the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Peter Obi, made a surprise appearance at the All Nigeria Editors Conference, which just ended in Enugu. Because it was unexpected, immediate adjustments were made in the day’s programme to accommodate him. As a newsmaker that he is, Obi’s presence at high-profile events is usually electrifying. It gives people reason to look beyond the immediate and reflect on the possibility of a new Nigeria that the people can be proud of. In this wise, Obi’s presence at the Nigeria Guild of Editors (NGE) Conference, naturally, added more colour to the event.

To keep the programme going, it was announced that Obi would be invited to address the gathering for 10 minutes. That was well taken. But what looked awkward, indeed out of place, was the announcement that followed. Tunde Rahman, one of President Bola Tinubu’s media aides, would also address the gathering for 10 minutes. This development triggered some muted disapprovals among the participants. What was that incongruity supposed to mean? Was Obi, a presidential candidate, being equated with an aide of the President? More questions were raised as to why Rahman, who had been around from the first day of the conference, was only invited to speak when Obi was scheduled to speak. A day earlier, government officials, notably Vice President Kashim Shettima, the governors of Enugu and Jigawa states, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, and the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, among others, took turns to speak. Rahman was there all along. But no speaking opportunity was created for him until Peter Obi showed up at the event. Would that then mean that Rahman is also a presidential candidate like Obi? Is there any cogent reason why both of them should be placed on the same pedestal? This mismatch reignited afresh the debate about the deployment of surrogates or proxies for election campaigns.

One disturbing incongruity that has been rearing its ugly head under the Tinubu presidency is the convenience with which the President shies away from facing the Nigerian people who, very arguably, voted him into office. As President of Nigeria, Tinubu has a lot of questions to answer and clarifications to make about who he is and who he is not. But what we get is what literary symbolists call “excellent dumb discourse”. The President is dumb on and about every issue concerning him. This ugly tendency has, regrettably, crept into the ongoing presidential campaigns. Because Tinubu has been avoiding facing Nigerians, the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Atiku Abubakar, had to declare recently that he would not participate in any presidential debate unless President Tinubu was directly involved. Should presidential candidates be debating or be joining issues with aides of Mr. President? It should not be so. Luckily, this oddity did not spoil the broth for the Guild’s event. Obi, in his characteristic grace and candour, took it in his stride. He made his remarks and, as should be expected, touched on some vexed issues of our nationhood that require urgent redress.

But something emerged from that exercise. It turned out that while Obi was speaking, my friend and colleague, Mr. Azu Ishiekwene, was busy fact-checking some of the points that Obi was making. When he had opportunity to grab the microphone, Azu demanded that Obi clarify the figures he reeled out about Aso Rock Hospital and the capital budget of some five or six teaching hospitals in the country. Azu’s inquisition could have passed for a genuine attempt by an inquisitive reporter to cross-check facts that he intends to build into his story. But his intentions became suspicious when it was recalled that Azu had, in March this year, launched a scurrilous attack on Obi for no reason. That attack was in bad faith and it appeared that Azu was biding his time, waiting for another opportunity to ridicule Obi once again. Even though Obi had, while responding to Azu, promised to make the figures associated with the capital budgets of the heaching Hospitals in question available within 48 hours, he supplied them in less than three hours from the time he left the venue of the conference. One interesting fact that emerged from it all was that Obi was right when he said that the cumulative capital budget of the six teaching hospitals for 2024 was less than that of Aso Rock Hospital. Whereas Aso Hospital had some N15 billion in its kitty, the capital budgets of the six teaching hospitals under consideration cumulatively hovered around N13 billion.

But Obi was not in the least bothered about Azu’s inquisitorial gnawing. What he pleaded for, instead, for the sake of fairness and balanced reporting, is that the same microscopic lenses with which the Azus of the journalism profession are tearing through his statements should equally be applied to the other presidential candidates, including President Tinubu. It is important to recognize the fact that, of the three frontline presidential candidates, Obi is the only one who is willing and ready to engage with the people. Whereas the others are afraid of scrutiny and will do anything to stay away from the prying eyes of news hunters, Obi is ever ready to be taken up on any issue. He suffers no hangups. If ours were a proper clime, the likes of Obi would be seen as a model to be aspired to. For any society to make progress, its affairs must be managed by transparent persons who the people will have no reason to doubt. But when public engagement is shrouded in secrecy and opaqueness, the people are in trouble. Obi’s transparency and openness in themselves constitute good reasons to embrace him.

Now, the campaigns are on. But who is campaigning? Where is President Tinubu? We cannot find him anywhere on the scene. He is behaving as if Nigerians do not have the right to ask questions about the way he has run the affairs of the country since he assumed the reins of governance. The President cannot hide behind any veil. He has to face the people. A refusal on his part to do so amounts to disdain. A seating President who is seeking re-election cannot afford to treat the people as if they do not matter.

Like Tinubu, Atiku’s engagement with the people is not yet upbeat. He appears to be relying more on proxies. This predisposition is an aberration. It will deal a devastating blow to our quest for an enduring democratic culture if it is not nipped in the bud. Those who aspire to lead the people should borrow a leaf from Mr. Peter Obi. Public service is not a cult; and it should not be made to become one.

Journalists have a role to play in this regard. Most of the speakers at the NGE conference said this much. As watchdogs, journalists must continue to hold governments to account. But when journalists overlook the transgressors and choose, instead, to brow beat those who have kept their doors open, they, wittingly or unwittingly, become accomplices in the devious effort by unpatriotic elements to wreck the nation.