President Bola Tinubu’s team of aides which labors at the helm of the country’s affairs for heavy remuneration is not shorn of aggression. While the president gives off a demeanor befitting the dignity of his office, Nigerians know the stretch of steel that lies just within.
But not everyone on the team cares that discretion should disguise the dynamite within. One of such is Bayo Onanuga who advises the president on Information and Strategy. His position is a senior one within the president’s inner team, and so he holds the vantage point of taking the pulse of the president and comparing and communicating it to the public.
Mr. Onanuga has shown that he has no fear neither does he take prisoners. Recently, he refused to take prisoners from the Guardian Newspapers when he accused the newspaper of inciting regime change by its lead story of October 25, 2024 with the title “Calls for military intervention: misery, harsh politics, driving Nigerians to desperate choices.”
Really, Mr Onanuga? On the surface, one would assume that a journalist of his long experience would know what independent journalism is about, particularly how it can appear like incitement but is anything but. Telling one fine line from the other should be easy for one with a journalist’s eyes, but it appears that just like the government he serves for whom even the simplest things are proving too difficult, Mr. Onanuga is having a great deal of difficulty distinguishing fearless journalism from incitement.
If Mr. Onanuga wants to pinpoint and then punish incitement, it is not the Guardian Newspaper, which has put in many distinguished years in defense of the country’s democracy that he should turn to. Rather, he should consider travelling to where the ruling APC massively inflated votes in last year’s elections. There, Mr. Onanuga would find many who supposedly supported his principal last year but who having been since forced by hunger to change their minds, openly called for regime change during anti-government protests in August 2024.
Mr. Onanuga would also be better served by looking within the ranks of the government he serves, whose chaotic policies are a recipe for the government’s deafening calls for change, even regime change.
The Guardian Newspaper is not Nigeria’s problem. Journalists are not the country’s problems. While a few of them have sold their birthright for a pot of porridge, many of them continue to do a courageous job in a country increasingly bent on careening chaotically towards chaos.
Together with writers, and more than any other profession, it is journalism that tells the story of those on the margins. At great risk to their lives and limbs, journalists journey to the margins to unearth the stories the forces of oppression would rather silence. Many of them have made the ultimate sacrifice in the process.
At a time when soaring costs of living, insecurity and government inertia and ineptitude are extending the boundaries of the margins all over the country, journalists cannot afford silence. Mr. Onanuga should know that. After all,it was only recently that he started to wine and dine at the table of power in Nigeria. All those years he was locked out, he surely deployed his journalism to be seen and heard, while simultaneously finding comfort in the work of other journalists.
President Tinubu’s government, which has appeared dazed by the depth of Nigeria’s challenges, may be trying to give Nigerians a better life, but it is clear that there are many people on his team who aren’t helping him and who should be put out to pasture.
Whether it is in inciting ethnic hatred in the president’s home state, or attacking a critical section of the society that has been trying so hard to maintain the endangered balance between the government and the people, it is clear that their actions are counterproductive, and their presence on the president’s team inimical to building trust and confidence with the public.
President Tinubu recently shook up his cabinet. Change was inevitable even if a few valuable members were let go in the process. The president should consider doing so with his advisors, especially those who have proven again and again that their portfolio is of pettiness, and their counsel one of chastisement and condemnation.
Inevitable change is the only constant thing in life. A government which is doing well should not fear change. Anyone who fears change is a proponent of stasis and a messenger of mediocrity. Such a person is an enemy of the society.
Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com
