UMANA UMANA’S MISFORTUNE Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow. Thou shall not escape calumny-William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Hamlet. This postulation is best exemplified in the gripping details of the persecution which culminated in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. He came to stand in gap to bear the iniquities of men and reconcile them to God. But the same people he came to save criticized Him virulently and completed their cycle of aversion for Him by crucifying Him. The scripture portrays Jesus Christ as a man of peace whose simplicity, kind-heartedness and yet immense power left everyone reeling in doubt as to who he actually was. Conscious of this public agitation, He once inquired of His disciples who they thought He was. The scripture has not recorded Christ Jesus as controversial, cantankerous or covetous but as a man whose life was a template of best values. Despite such exemplary life that bore no speck of sin or iniquity those who did not like Him were relentless in fabricating colossal untruths against Him and thereof procuring specious reasons to justify His crucifixion. And this was even Jesus, not a mere mortal. Many who have chosen committed public service as life’s careers have also been objects of such excoriation and vilification. After-all the precedent had since been set in the case of Jesus Christ. Sociologists describe it as the social cost of service. Others posit that insofar as such service is directed at humans, they must be some dissension and cynicism no matter how well intentioned or altruistic the man desiring to provide the service may be. Governor Godswill Akpabio, despite the purposeful leadership he has foisted on the State has not escaped the calumny of these anti-social groups. The governor became the victim of incoherent fictional writers who assigned themselves the role of disparaging him daily in local tabloids that are not more than rag sheets. They are still at the assignment. But God who knows the genuiness of the man’s thoughts for Akwa Ibom invented in him an aphorism of profound insight. He assuaged the pangs of those lies arrayed at him by rationalising that only a tree with the best fruits are pelted the most. And so rather than be distracted and piqued by the avalanche of ascerbic criticisms which were all specious, he became more resolute and the result is the increased momentum of development in the State. Governor Akpabio turned the many unsubstantiated allegations into an adrenalin for increased work and superlative results. Before now, Akwa Ibom State was well known for petition writing in addition to serving as a rich pool or industry for house-boys and house-girls. The Akpabio administration, however, came and changed the latter through its free and compulsory education policy thus rendering that industry comatose. The petition writing industry appears to have also vowed to undergo change at least in response to time especially in this era of ICT. It has therefore graduated from ordinary petition writing which has a narrow audience to using a broader medium like a newspaper to disparage important people and bring them to disrepute. This practice is erroneously construed as journalism but it is not. It is part of the failure of the institutions of State which is noticeable in the inactions of the regulatory authorities and the lack of public faith in the judicial system. It is why victims of libel are nonchalant and the medium which commits felonies against them continues with a latitude of operational freedom that proves that the society is lawless. And that anyone can fabricate falsehood against someone and publish same in the mass media without appropriate sanction from the victim using existing law or the regulatory authority by way of cautioning or sanctioning or the intervention of the Judicial System which has authority to dispense justice. It must however be noted that the latter can not act unless called upon to do so. The gibberish by Thomas Thomas which appeared in the Journalism enfant terrible called Global Concord of Wednesday, July 3, 2013 is one of the manifestations of the failure of the institutions of State. It is obvious that the school that trained the author is a failure. The paper that has employed him is a failure from its defective foundation to professional stand point. And I dare to say that even the church he attends is a failure otherwise it would have inculcated him with the morality and sanctity of truth. The lineage of failure extends to the people he has severally and serially defamed who have failed to use the existing laws to curb his many excesses which I can only attribute to immaturity, lack proper education and defective upbringing. It also includes government which has failed to demand NUJ and the regulatory agency to put their houses in order. After all a man’s right stops where another man’s begins. Journalism as a profession is noble. The course of training takes one through what is called Ethics of Journalism. It also avails trainees with basic laws that should guide its practice. It frowns at witch-hunting, defaming people and even the invasion of one’s privacy. It insists on the preservation of national interest and professes that only actions that serve the ends of public good should be promoted. It encourages the building of virile and cohesive society aimed at promoting the collective good of all. It works at promoting unity amongst brothers and sisters and building and strengthening bridges across ethnic divides. Most importantly, it engages in the promotion of justice, equity and fair-play. Indeed a true journalist is an honourable person that the public can depend upon for truth even when that truth may be adverse to his interest. But journalism as practiced by charlatan Thomas Thomas through the rag sheet platform called Global Concord is a negation of all the above. His unrestrained maligning of the Secretary to the State Government, Obong Umanah Okon Umanah which also made a stray and despicable attempt to create ethnic friction between the Ibibios and the Annangs are qualified aberrations in the practice of journalism. The weighty and unsubstantiated allegations he has leveled against Umanah Umanah depict him as dim and vacuous without any knowledge of the consequence of his action or what I call misadventure. I am sure his cohorts would applaud him as brimming with courage. Pray, they would also be there one day the touted courage would become an intractable libel suit. When I finally managed to labour through that incoherent gibberish in Global Concord about Umanah Umanah by way of reading, I asked myself these pertinent questions, do people who do this kind of hatchet work know God? How much could they have possibly grossed for this evil work? Would they enjoy such blood money? Is this still politics? The writing which could neither be classified as news, news feature or feature article and cast in poor, dour and hostile language made reading very difficult. The target is Umanah Umanah. The aim is to shoot him down for daring to seek elective office. And to achieve the objective, all is fair including allegations of murder. But in doing this, does Thomas Thomas and his co-travelers know that the families of those alleged to have been murdered could wish to exact revenge using a sub-culture method if they rely on the basic tenet that truth to a journalist is sacrosanct? And that they could feel that such information coming from a journalist must be taken seriously? His list of people whose downfalls he claims are traceable to Umanah Umanah could best be seen as a disingenuous ploy to cause disaffection across the ranks of these prominent Akwa Ibom people. One cannot miss his reckless and unsparing use of invectives against his object of hate. Again I ask the question, does Thomas Thomas have a father, uncle or elderly relations. He behaves as someone from outer space who knows nothing about our cherished values of which respect is one of them. Let me advise that the vessel which stores hate is always in greater danger than the object which it is poured. Thomas Thomas and Global Concord have a veritable platform to mould public opinion against Umanah Umanah without descending to the abyss of hate that could give rise to defamation. Just like they have a right of opinion, Umanah Umanah also has a right to vye for any political office of his choice. A good professional media work would educate the electorate on why another candidate is better than Umanah and why he should be rejected. It should not pre-occupy itself with fabricating unfounded negative tales about people whose candidature they wish to oppose. When the electorate realizes that what was reported about such people were lies, public faith in journalism would be eroded and persecution complex would turn into added advantage for the men the journalist sought so desperately to disparage. Let practitioners see advancing society as a worthy cause, not the parochial leanings that would only plummet the society back to the era of arrested development.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 10:11:30 +0000
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