A DEARTH OF DECORUM IN THE FOURTH ESTATE OF THE REALM: A REFLECTION ON THE RECENT NDLEA “TALES"
The centuries-long story of the shepherd boy
from Aesop’s Fables that kept crying wolf to get attention because he was bored
is not lost to us. As he expected, the Villagers who heard the cry dropped
their work and ran in great excitement to the pasture. But when they got there
they found the Boy doubled up with laughter at the trick he had played on them.
A few days later the Shepherd Boy again
shouted, “Wolf! Wolf!” Again the Villagers ran to help him, only to be laughed
at again. Then one evening as the sun was setting behind the forest and the
shadows were creeping out over the pasture, a Wolf really did spring from the
underbrush and fall upon the Sheep.
In terror the Boy ran toward the village
shouting “Wolf! Wolf!” But though the Villagers heard the cry, they did not run
to help him as they had before. “He cannot fool us again,” they said.
The Wolf killed a great many of the Boy’s
sheep and then slipped away into the forest. This seems to be the current
practice of some seemingly respectable news media houses.
Journalism is one of
the most respected professions in the world, serving as a watch guard over the events
within any polity. However, with given freedom of press comes the responsibility
of painstakingly confirming stories before they are published. This was not the
case when Sahara Reporters and Simon Ateba of News Africa went to town (social
media) with the news of embezzlement in the National Drug Law Enforcement
Agency (NDLEA).
Let’s do a little “think-tanking”
together now.
Drug Control
administration and the fight against drug barons is a challenging task. It is a
national assignment and responsibility that is way too important to toy with.
One would wonder why this allegation is happening now but it is not too difficult
as our team of investigators have, in the course of tracking everyone involved in
the said petition, come to a brick wall at the door-steps of one of the Media
houses carrying this story. As a matter of fact, the planned and ongoing
processes for the extradition of Senator Kashamu Buruji is imminent and
suddenly, this allegation. Does the media house in question have any
relationship with the senator to warrant their continual pervasive interest in
his drug case? Why does this particular
media house have far and wide reaching contacts in the NDLEA to be invited to
an ongoing crime/drug sting scene as the video below reveals? Who is this “Your Guy” that
authorized them to go into the scene of a sensitive drug operation? How come
they were already in constant phone communication with Sen. Kashamu and knew he
was even going to commit suicide? It seems to me they knew more than the NDLEA
in this matter and the brazenness of their interest in this drug issue and the
current allegations to forestall the planned extradition is no coincidence.
Above video simply
shows the lack of maturity and understanding in handling very sensitive issues.
The drug war is very real and the barons fight dirty too but to let the media
become a willing tool in their hands is a cause for sober reflection and reassessment
of why certain characters in the first place should be allowed to practice
journalism. But again, nothing can be done about that as everyone is only ruled
by his/her personal knowledge and home-grown ethics as the media online is uncensored.
It would be nice to go
further down this road of fighting against the bad guys to see what happened as we
take a quick revelation of the baron’s dirty fights from NDLEA’s Wikipedia
page.
In 2005, Bello
Lafiaji was the then Chairman/Chief Executive of NDLEA whose vow and dedication
to make life unbearable for drug merchants and strike them where it hurts the
most made him a target of the drug barons as was evidenced in their connivance
with some third party to frame him up in 2005. Bello Lafiaji was wrongly
convicted on June 21, 2010 of conspiracy and conversion of 164,300 euros seized
from a drug suspect in November 2005 when he was the Chairman of the NDLEA. He
was sentenced to four years in prison together with his personal assistant.
They were investigated by Nigeria’s Independent and Corrupt Practices
Commission (ICPC). Long story short, through an appeal, Bello Lafiaji’s innocence
was proven as the prosecution failed to prove its cases against the appellants
beyond reasonable doubt.
Ok…so let’s continue.
This is what happens in a system where operatives are allowed to stay and grow
very fat in a given office or location and they will resist any attempt to
change the status quo. Our investigation has revealed that in just two years of
Col. Abdallah’s tenure as Chairman of NDLEA, he has followed the books to
ensure proper staff postings and promotions and the planned major action will
obviously affect the bad eggs and hence, their willing connivance with Drug
Barons and Drug-affiliated media. How else can one prove the existence of the
petitioner when the media houses cannot even state where or how they got the
said petition. This is indeed a déjà vu and
there is therefore no need to delve into the details of the NDLEA press release
which is in the public domain and posted in this blog as well, but it is left
for the public to ascertain the debasing and cut-throat level our journalism is
nose-diving towards with these type of media reports.
Renown and reputable media
is expected to stimulate citizen deliberation and build public understanding of
issues, and report on major public problems in a way that advances public
knowledge of issues giving the masses the ability to decide based on their having access to the versions of the story from all sides. Stories like the one carried without hearing the side of NDLEA lead to abysmally poor journalistic adventures that may at best be captured by the fears of many industry watchers as the boy who constantly cries wolf and gets away with it may one day, in his treachery, encounter a real wolf and the villagers will not come to save him.
In concluding, one should like to ponder about the fate of the industry so we do not unwittingly throw ourselves into an event where we come to finally chant dirges upon the demise of our own dear noble profession as gently and articulate pressmen (and women) while losing our citizenry of the Fourth Estate of the Realm in the face of banditry journalism as we see today.
In concluding, one should like to ponder about the fate of the industry so we do not unwittingly throw ourselves into an event where we come to finally chant dirges upon the demise of our own dear noble profession as gently and articulate pressmen (and women) while losing our citizenry of the Fourth Estate of the Realm in the face of banditry journalism as we see today.
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