The Press and The President
Folarin Samson
The October 1st Independence Day address of
President Goodluck Jonathan, no doubt has caused a lot of embarrassment for the
presidency. The fatal error has also given the opposition justifiable grounds
to take on Mr. President for misinforming the Nigerian people and telling such
a lie to the international community. A
cross section of Nigerians are particularly upset that despite the many cases
of fraud and corruption recorded in the Jonathan’s administration, there has
not been any convincing incidence of prosecution and conviction, which
sufficiently evinces a lame approach to combating the corruption monster and stymies
any research that portrays the country as being on the vanguard of fighting
corruption. Mr. President in his Independence Day address had said:
“In its latest report, Transparency International noted
that Nigeria is the second most improved country in the effort to curb
corruption. We will sustain the effort in this direction with an even stronger
determination to strengthen the institutions that are statutorily entrusted
with the task of ending this scourge,”
After the upsurge of public criticisms occasioned by the denial
of Transparency International of ever releasing such report, the Presidency was
compelled to set-up an investigation committee that discovered the information
was culled from a newspaper in the country. The Ministry of Information in a
memo published on its website sniped critics of the address and gloated that the president’s statement was not
made up but gathered from a reliable press medium. The rejoinder obviously did
not have any recourse to the denial of Transparency International before hailing
the statement as “notorious facts”.
At any rate, the outcome of the Ministry and its consequent
resort to counter-attack, does not absolve the presidency of blame. The rule of
the thumb which they failed to observe was to confirm the information from its
direct source, in this case, Transparency International. Or to quote the source
of the information by saying “A Nigerian newspaper recently reported ….” The speech
writer in mindless uppity went directly to cite Transparency International
without any verification.
A review of the supposedly cited newspaper report further confounds
with gross misrepresentation and manipulation of information. The BusinessDay report of Friday, 14th
September, under the headline “FG
anti-corruption initiative impacts Nigeria’s global perception” had said: “The
survey on global corruption perceptions for 2011 versus 2001 showed that the
third best improvement in the world was in Nigeria, with its score improving by
1.5 points. In the scoring, Nigeria follows the United States of America, which
scored 2 points, while Bangladesh scored the highest by 2.3 points” Whereas the foregoing reflected third
best improvement, the president’s speech indicated second. That cannot be a
mistake, somebody tinkered with that report.
Again, the information was lifted from the paper without any
proper investigation. The reporter had analyzed the data released by the
organization and given the impression that Nigeria was doing well in its fight
against corruption. It was half truth that smacked of incomplete and deceptive analysis.
The writer did not report that Nigeria rated 90 out of 91 in the Corruption
Perception Index of 2001 and the 1.5 point increase in ten years only put
Nigeria on 143 position out of 183 countries sampled in 2011. Would Mr.
President have thanked Transparency International that despite all effort to
curb the corruption monster we have only been able to record 1.5 point
increment in ten good years, whereas Bangladesh which rated 91 out of 91 in 2001,
now rates 120 out of 183. Neighboring Rwanda is currently 49 on the same table.
Could the President have been proud of this unimpressive improvement to the
point of mentioning it in his national address?
In the final analysis, the reporter’s error was fixing
Nigeria in the same category as the USA who primed 24th and without
presenting our degrading tabular position. The president’s error was passing
off this slanted, patronizing data analysis as a direct citation of Transparency
International, coupled with a slight joggle of “third best improvement” to
“second most improved”, which understandably scandalized the organization into
crying blue murder.
It is unfortunate that when countries like the US are
celebrating the power of communication as evident in Mrs. Obama’s recent
sweeping address at the US Democratic National Convention, Nigeria still has
problems with simple tasks as a public address. True, President Jonathan may
not be so gifted like a Winston Churchill who galvanized Britain to prosecute
the Second World War even when his fellow countrymen were on the verge of surrender
to Hitler. He may also not be naturally inspirational as Martin Luther King who
imbued black Americans with courage to demand their right to equality. But the
president’s office ought to endow him with credible professionals who could
make up for such deficiency.
Remarkably, President Jonathan’s public presentations this
year in two most important dates of the country have been greeted with public rage
and criticisms. The Democracy day speech was described as not only too lengthy
and boring, but most suffocating with its irrelevant statistical data. What
shattered the speech came last and remained indelible: UNILAG ill-advised name
change. Then happened the October 1st controversial statement of “improvement”
in the fight against corruption.
All these suggest there is a problem with the handlers of the
President’s address. One wonders where the likes of Ruben Abati, Doyin Okupe
and other media experts were when the speech was handed to the president. Those
vested with the duty of crafting this important public document have shown
incompetence and ideally ought to be relieved of their appointment for bringing
the president into disrepute in the international community.
There is also need for Mr. President to pay more attention to
his public presentations. Communication is very key in leadership because it
largely affects result and as Professor of Communication at the University of
Lagos, Ralph Akinfeleye said, “communication is an equivocator which can either
provoke or unprovoke”. When former President Bush told Americans he would smoke
out Osama Bin Laden from his hideout, Americans had heard enough and Obama who
was probably in the listening audience could not but give Leon Panetta, his CIA
chief urgent directive to hunt the mastermind of the 9/11 massacre. That is the
power of leadership communication and with all due respect, President Jonathan
rates very low in this regard.
It is equally important for speech writers, either in the
public or private sectors to learn the importance of truth and accurate
deployment of facts. Those scribing for public office holders especially
require high level scrutiny and management of information because we live in a
global village where nothing is hidden and internet search engines can easily expose
any ruse created to give a false public impression.
This incident is another blow to the credibility of the
Nigerian media. Writers will in the future become wary of citing Nigerian press
because of misleading half truths like this. It is important editors and other
gate keepers in the media increase their screen threshold to avoid a recurrence
of embarrassing incidents like this. One of the basic elements of reporting taught
in journalism institutions is thorough verification of information. In this age
where information distortion is rampant, it is safe to check and cross check
data and present figures as they are without any bias no matter how well
intentioned. The strength of any media is not just in its coverage or
circulation spread, but the credibility it has earned over the years through
professional practice.
In the future, Mr. President may consider rehearsing his
address before a simulated audience bearing in mind his multi-faceted, diverse
audience of friends and foes, educated and illiterates, skeptics and optimists,
indifferent and analysts, local and international. Such avenues could also help
in plucking such errors as this. That is the burden he has to bear as the
president of the largest black nation on earth.
08030572852/childofdkingdom@gmail.com
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