The better part of penultimate weekend was largely consumed by speculative reports about the visit of Mallam Nasir el-Rufai to Owerri. While some of the reports scratched the facts about his visit on the surface, some others were imaginary tales designed to appeal to the flagellum of its promoters. As someone who has been in the Journalism profession for well over 35 years, I was embarrassed by the concoctions that were mischievously being passed off as facts by media outfits that ought to know and do better. I also noticed that even state correspondents of otherwise reputable newspapers could not get the true hang of what transpired in Owerri. Most of the reportage betrayed their authors as absentee reporters who rely more on hearsay than anything else in carrying out their official assignments.
But what rankled the most was the fictive tale from a Lagos-based national newspaper. The Sunday edition of the newspaper reported that Mr Peter Obi was booed by hundreds of protesters in Owerri for bringing El-Rufai to the city.
The report also claimed that it took heavy security to restrain the protesters from physically barring Obi and El-Rufai from gaining entry into the Assumpta Cathedral, venue of the lecture series.
This report, to say the least, is imaginary. Peter Obi was not at the Odenigbo Lecture. The event did not also take place at the Assumpta Cathedral. Therefore, the question of trying to prevent somebody who was not physically present at an event from gaining entry into the venue of the said event is a contradiction in terms. As I hinted earlier, reports such as this are designed for purposes of flagellation.
The objective is to give someone or some people a feeling of triumph, or satisfaction, however false that may be.
In all of this, anybody who is associated with journalism cannot but wonder at what may have happened to the journalistic dictum popularized by British journalist, C.P Scott, to the effect that comment is free, but facts are sacred. A news report is not a comment.
It is a fact, and cannot therefore be coloured. It is unimaginable that a newspaper of note will deliberately, and with clear eyes, publish a news report, knowing so to be false. If there is any modicum of integrity left in the practice of journalism in this country, the newspaper in question would have apologized to its readers for leading them astray. Pretending that all is well with the report amounts to taking the reading public for fools. Should a news medium that wants to be respected engage in this level of banality?
Let me state at this juncture that I was a witness to the Owerri event. I was part of the planning and execution of El-Rufai’s appearance at a private dinner organized for him by Barr. Nnaemeka Maduagwu. Both men met when El-Rufai was Minister of the Federal Capital Territory. Maduagwu then was Transport Secretary at the Federal Capital Territory Administration. The dinner in question was just put together by a grateful Maduagwu who, on learning that his former boss was to attend the Odenigbo Lecture in Owerri, decided to host him to a dinner a day before the event. There was nothing political about the get-together, and a few people who were allowed to make remarks at the event were strongly advised not to go political. Peter Obi was invited to the event just like any other person.
Thankfully, he graciously accepted, as he always does, to honour the invitation. This was in spite of the fact that he was not feeling well on that particular day. At the event, invited guests interacted freely with Obi and El-Rufai as much as they could. In the end, everybody went home, feeling warm and pleasant at the camaraderie that attended the exercise.
The morning after, Obi left Owerri to attend to other matters. El-Rufai, whose visit was scheduled, had to stay back to attend the Odenigbo Lecture, not as guest speaker as some of the laughable reports suggested but as “okwado” or supporter of Odenigbo. Those who reported that El-Rufai was there as guest lecturer were either being ignorant or mischievous or both.
Odenigbo Lecture is written and delivered in Igbo language. That was and remains the concept as put together by Most Rev. AJV Obinna when he was the Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Owerri. The lecture is usually meant to coincide with the Owerri Archdiocesan Day Celebration which holds in the first weekend in the month of September every year. The Odenigbo Lecture which takes place on the second day of the celebration is regarded as the apogee of the two-day event. That concept has come to stay.
Odenigbo lecture as a veritable tool for the promotion of Igbo language and culture cannot therefore be fanned out to someone who neither speaks nor understands the Igbo language. That was the extent of El-Rufai’s involvement in the lecture. But Peter Obi, who the newspaper under reference said was booed was not at the event. He left Owerri even before the commencement of the Holy Mass that preceded the Odenigbo Lecture. Besides, Obi did not bring El-Rufai to the lecture. The latter was duly invited to the event by the Catholic Archdiocese of Owerri. But was he booed? There was nothing of such.
There was, strictly speaking, no protest against el-Rufai, contrary to the fictional reportage by a section of the media. What transpired does not even qualify as a whimper.
What happened on that fateful morning was that a handful of miscreants were exported to the back gate of Villa Assumpta. I drove past them as I was making my way into the Cathedral grounds. I did not understand what they were there for. It was the chief security officer of the Archdiocesan Security outfit that told me that some of them were carrying placards that were suggestively anti-El-Rufai. When they were questioned by the clergy about their mission, it was discovered that they did not mean business. They were blind recruits of attention-seeking politicians who wanted to give President Bola Tinubu the impression that they embarrassed one of his most virulent critics. In fact, some of the miscreants confessed to not knowing what they were sent to the Cathedral grounds to do. Because there was nothing serious about what they came to do, they did not know when El-Rufai drove in and when he left. Nobody stood in his way.
In all, the mild drama outside the Cathedral grounds was no more than a storm in a teacup.
It was also misleading to report that Obi and El-Rufai were almost prevented from entering the Assumpta Cathedral.
The report reinforces the fact that what the concerned newspaper fed to the public was mere hearsay. The event did not take place in the Cathedral. It took place at Obiri Odenigbo Pavilion inside Villa Assumpta. That is not the same thing as the Cathedral. I think that the newspaper in question owes its readers an apology for the undiluted falsehood that it fed them with. It should also apologize to Obi and El-Rufai for using their names in vain.
QUOTE:
Some of the miscreants confessed to not knowing what they were sent to the Cathedral grounds to do. Because there was nothing serious about what they came to do, they did not know when El-Rufai drove in and when he left. In all, the mild drama outside the Cathedral grounds was no more than a storm in a teacup.
