Bayo Onanuga battles yet another media by Abimbola Adelakun

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By Abimbola Adelakun

When you  finally read The Guardian editorial that drew the ire of presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga, you cannot help but wonder at his overreaction.

For a Presidency that forged its path to power through journalistic propaganda, these people are too jumpy when they encounter media reports they consider unflattering.

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Even before being sworn into power, Onanuga had started gaming regulatory agencies against the media house that refused to drool before their almighty presence.

An egregious instance was the NBC imposition of a N5m fine on Channels at their prompting. If the court had not put paid to that nonsense, that is the singular errand the NBC would have been running for this administration by now. The other day, their government also threatened to sue Daily Trust. Now, Onanuga is going after The Guardian? And that is not even counting his social media meltdowns. For an ex-journalist, this man sure has both the determination and zeal for single-handedly policing the media―old and new—on behalf of his principal. One can only wish him good luck on this crusade.

After reading through The Guardian article at least twice because I genuinely wanted to understand why a reputable media house would go to the extent of “openly inciting unrest against President Bola Tinubu’s administration and advocates regime change,” I found nothing of the sort either explicitly stated or implied. Onanuga had to have been responding to some other issue other than that piece. Whatever it is that bothers him, it has made him the proverbial old man who gets uneasy each time dry bones are mentioned in a proverb.

First, they must understand that nobody needs to read The Guardian or any other newspaper to be incited against a government that has systematically despoiled them, tanked the quality of their livelihood, and has no comfort to offer other than the same jading platitudes with which they fed us through “nine years of Buhari.” If the government—through any of its officials—think that the revolution against their poorly-contrived policies will be activated by reading newspaper editorials, they have another think coming.

Between the time I first drafted this article and when I sent it off to the editor, fuel price increased by N27 to N30. That looks like a negligible amount, but the multiplier effect that increase will have on goods and services will further dwindle the purchasing power of an already denuded people. Given the speed with which people’s lives are changed by the vicissitudes of T-Pain’s economy, I can assure Onanuga that newspaper editorials/features, no matter how provocative, can only react to a reality that has already been reshaped. They are not the ones who will incite the revolution; the best that printed journalism can do in the age of new media technology is to analyse the revolution after it must have happened, exploring the angles that online and 24-hour on-call analysts on social media might have missed.

As that Guardian report duly noted, people’s nostalgic longings for a return of the military government are not unfounded. I agree. The factors shaping Nigerians’ angst are based on material conditions of hardship they experience, something which Onanuga and his paymasters—safely ensconced in the villa from where they keep throwing out one harsh reform after the other—can never quite understand.

Twenty-five years is near enough for people to look back and wish for the return of the former oppressors. Yet, 25 years is also distant enough for the memories of the pain that comprised the military years to have receded and replaced by misguided desires. It does not help that the rickety government that Onanuga serves hardly has any coherent results to show for all their pretentions at reforms. They embarked on costly restructuring without proper cost-counting, and that is how we found ourselves stuck with reforms that even the government that initiated them cannot properly defend. All they offer by way of projection into the future are vague promises.

There are many days when Nigeria under Tinubu feels like living under Sani Abacha with social media. We can start by recounting the records of the violation of human rights that have so far been perpetrated by the so-called fighters for the return of democracy. From key officials in the Tinubu administration, to the police who run the errands of egotistic big men in power, and the array of wannabe dictators who have the Police IG on speed dial, this is a government that serially forgets that it is supposed to be democratic. Then add the rapid impoverishment millions of Nigerians have experienced in a short while and the sense of despondency pervading everywhere, and you will see why people cannot but make an association between their lives under the Tinubu administration and the military. The days of Abacha and the days of Tinubu have so much in common that it feels as if history has been static.

Every reasonable person can agree that a return to the military is not the solution. First, because they are anachronic, and second, because anyone who thinks that a military that has been severely depleted by fighting terrorism, banditry, and other categories of restiveness throughout the country is the one that will launch an economic agenda that will redeem Nigeria’s history is self-deluded. The Nigerian military cannot even manage its own budget effectively!

No matter how illusionary the desires for a military return might be, there is a context dictating them. Those who lived under the military and want their return do not see an enlightening difference between this present darkness and the one they experienced under the military. They take Nigeria’s foray into democratic rule as a farce that should be ended. For another generation that never quite witnessed military rule and relies on passed down accounts, the longing for the military is precipitated on the longings for an efficacious power; the power that can compel history into motion, not the effete one that calls itself democracy.

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One cannot blame them for such delusions. Structures of political power in Nigeria are so perverted that the only thing they breed is ill consequences. At this point, we are basically a one-party state; hardly anyone can afford principled opposition. Basic political science teaches us that the three arms of government are supposed to serve as checks and balances for each other, but there is no such integrity anymore. Leaders can do basically whatever they want, and they have not hesitated to take advantage of the lack of a viable system of accountability. It is a democracy, but it is also not one in spirit and truth.

The spirit of democracy has been routinely violated, and people know from experience that hardly any other means exist for them to get rid of this power and principalities that assumes a lordly reign over their lives other than through a violent upheaval. That is why the desire for a military intervention is not about to go away.

People like Onanuga might chalk down the desires for insurrection to the antagonisms of tribal politics, but the truth is that their own government and its inefficacies have done more to promote the military in the imagination of Nigerians than the coups in our neighbouring countries.

To provide the balanced perspective that he thinks The Guardian missed, Onanuga’s rejoinder added the “positive developments” that have occurred under his principal’s watch. If he is certain of the veracity of his figures, I encourage him to go to the marketplaces and tell those buying food at astronomically high prices about the “notable decline” of the revenue-to-debt service ratio this year, the rise of foreign reserves, a higher GDP growth, and even increased exports. In his own interest, he should also go with his hearse in tow.