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Some chronic, over-repeated acts of high-handed injustice in my home state of Akwa Ibom have for too long gone unreported and undiscussed and therefore unchecked. Once anybody becomes anything political, such a one can do and undo -and nothing will happen. In the last three years, this daredevil recklessness has tended to show up in ways never before thought possible. Things have descended to an all-time low that victims tell you who want to fight for them to leave it because “nothing will happen.“
Citizens send in proposals and pronto, these intellectual properties are hijacked in full and implemented in broad daylight, word for word. Communal or personal or company land is taken over (a euphemism for seized) and so-called compensation paid is next to nothing peanuts (emphasis mine). Akwaibomights owed longterm by the state are sometimes coax-blackmailed to forfeit a lion’s share chunk or stay unpaid. To clarify, it is not as if the forfeited part is stolen; no, it is just an act of wickedness the way this writer sees it.
Recently, this writer paid a reputable radio station in the state in full for a two-hour live interview. As agreed, the FM station ran an ad hoc promotion on air for over a week. However, twenty minutes to airtime, the staff member who liaised directly with me called to inform that the programme was off the schedule. Rather than offer one of those lousy sweet-nothingsful excuses, the guy told me he had been asked to write for refunds to me.
Meaning, the payment conferred no contract over the fortnight or more involved before refunds. All that the station thinks I deserve is money; no apology, no explanation. All the preachments on matters of this nature by the 1999 constitution (as amended) and National Broadcasting Commission Code 6th Edition are immaterial because some Nigerians think they are superior while others are inferior. Such impunity, we should return to it before rounding off this entry!
In my nearly 55-year life, 33 of which I have spent as a broadcaster and journalist coupled with the 23 as an independent producer (working with many media houses around this country) never had I seen anything like this. Too many leaders and rich people in this country have for far too long thought that they are special, superior and ultimately above the law. And, now, they must be chagrined seeing that these erroneous assumptions and evil presumptions do not, cannot and shall not cut the ice with very many citizens. It is a choice for anyone to accept the concept of superior citizenship but no one should be listed, or agree to see self, as an inferior citizen.
By the way, though: does any such person exist? Before God, and before man? In the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of equity? Were human beings created, at and from the beginning, superior versus inferior?
Of course, the one answer to the foregoing is neither bizarre nor far-fetched. Black, white; tall, short; educated, uneducated; big, small; rich, poor; whatever, wherever: we are all the same. On the one hand, there is no one superior man, woman, boy, girl, child -globally, nationally, locally. On the other, there does not exist an inferior version, because all of us came from and by the same superior God.
Even those of us who think so saintly of ourselves are not superior to known or court-pronounced (I was going to say certified) criminals. The prisoner is as superior as the judge. The follower is as superior as the leader. Ditto: the small as the big; the poor as the rich; those who are unlettered as the educated.
Sssh, do not clap yet because there is a flip side to that argument. The judge, the leader and the entire human system must realise that they are as superior as the prisoner, the follower, the smallest or the worst of them. The rich are as superior as their poor; the big men, women and children are as their small; the educated are as their uneducated. It is the shameless failure of those on the top floor to regularise this mindset that has manufactured the sleeplessness of fear that continues to torment the men and women and children up there.
Which is the major reason they not only stay captured in the innate and learned subsections of fear but also sink in more and more, by the day. A state governor such as I dream to be in 2027, or any leader at all, must necessarily allow or make their people to be superior citizens or, at worst, upgrade them to that elite status. Or be deemed to have failed overall, in spite of and despite having built skyscrapers, flyovers and such other inconsequential pomposities which in developing countries are tagged dividends of democracy. The leader who is worthy in character and in leadership ought never to intimidate own people -ought never to make own people feel inferior!
A state governor, for instance, who desperately blocks own people’s access to right freedom of all types is not a leader. No true leader can keep their people from maximising their God-given potentialities let alone always wanting the worst for them. No true leader would render their people poor let alone poorer. No true leader lives to see let alone treat their people as inferior.
That is exactly why leadership is a call many should not dare answer; a cross many cannot dare bear. The real leader is like a true parent, or true mentor, or true boss. They make self-effacing sacrifices, always. They put those under them first, every time.
As to the effrontery displaced by the popular radio station, I am only interested in making sure that ill-treatment does not become a mannerism. That is, if it already is not. I shall take up the matter. NBC Code 6th Edition Section 3.3.1(b) categorically states: “A broadcaster shall not deny any person or group access to airtime for political purposes.”
Nobody should be denied access because of their political ambition or affiliation. The station comfortably doing what it did is a direct breach of the above. Secondly, cancelling me because of its affiliation to my political opponent means it denied me fair hearing to opposing views which NBC warned all stations against, just the 17th day of last month. This is a breach of Section 5.3.3(b) tagged fairness and balance.
Furthermore, why play politics after receiving and keeping payment for over a week? Plus, all I was coming to do was sensitisation. This clearly contravenes the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria as amended. Section 39 (1) -freedom of expression- particularly states: “every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinion and to receive and impart ideas and information without interference.”
Section 17 (2) (a) entitled social objectives, states “every citizen shall have equality of rights, obligations and opportunities before the law.” By denying me equal opportunity to airtime, after due payment and promotion lasting over a week, the station falls short of the constitution. The cancellation of a paid programme at the very last minute is a breach of contract and negligent misrepresentation causing massive reputational damage and financial loss. A refund is not enough, and even NBC readily agrees.
People who think themselves superior because of one advantage or the other must offer others superior treatment per time. This is the only way to fix our society and to safeguard our individual and collective future. Otherwise, even the most peaceable among us pushed to the wall like some inferior nonentity can become the most pugnacious. Life can do with just a little empathy, just a little humanity, just a little respect, horizontally and vertically.
God bless Nigeria!
