THE TWO MILLION NAIRA LUKUDI GIFT OF JOKE ORELOPE TO CIVICS WEEKLY: AN OXYMORON OF TRUE FALSE

By Razaq Adedeji Jimoh

THOSE who can remember a Chief Ebenezer Obey’s evergreen lyrics of the late 1970s – Babu Lukudi – should be apt to grasp its metaphor here. Obey, then a rising juju music star had his bulging tommy to show for evidence of his good time. But, according to him, this was maliciously taken for the sign of a brand of money ritual – Lukudi. When a ‘milled news’ of N2million gift to Civics Weekly by Her Excellency, Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire (OFR), eventually filtered into the snooping ambience of the media’s management, the immediate impulsive sense to make of it was an imaginary drop of the money from enigmatic messenger of the rumour miller. In today’s Nigeria where the profession of journalism and basic business of media have become synonymous with poverty, anyone in the sector would be highly grateful for any gift of such sum as a mystic show of a potent lukudi. Yes, call it a rumour; you will yet be boxed into a corner with the aphorism that in every rumour an element of truth may be traced eventually. Having therefore formally acknowledged the mongering, the burden upon this magazine to discharge now is to formally respond in either of these two Hausa vernacular alternatives: akoi lukudi or babu lukudi! Implicitly, this is to query: what is the fact about it?

The answer may be understood better if we appreciate it at incipient that a writer of conscience seeks only the friendship of like minds – whether in politics or social life. We shall soon see that to be the origin of the strong relationship of President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu with the likes of Dele Alake, Tunji Bello, Bayo Onanuga et al. It is the same reason of Joke Orelope’s personality of conscience that this writer of conscience may have found a meeting point for the attention she is getting in the Civics Weekly, even rightly for being an institution on her own in Alimosho local politics. Without any prejudice intended, this attention presumably made the origin of this lukudi gift in question from her opposition camp. But in her inner camp too, this writer may never be free of feasible malicious script to cast him in bad light of Mama's innate consciousness. This, for example, speaks to a needless backlash that followed the attempt by this writer to vindicate his positions that Her Excellency does not share the idea of deceptive politics that some party leaders were trying to play in her names. Oloto ki n leni -- a Yoruba proverb says. This is a story for another day when it shall be said that open conscience will always remain undaunted when treading through the thorny lawn of truth.

Those who not only lived but were also in trends of politics of the junta era – the psychopathic Abacha years – will understand why Tinubu, had earlier saw the vision to invest heavily in the media way back in the early years of this democracy. It paid off for him today! The truth is to say other politicians on the fringes of working to actualize his presidential ambition were not the direct victim of the media assault Tinubu has suffered since 2007. They are not likely to weigh effectively the psychological torture Tinubu could have gone through before the will of God eventually prevailed. The closest evidence was given by Idowu Akinlotan – the Palladium maestro of The Nation on Sunday. He confirmed that Tinubu had at one time considered giving up on his ambition, particularly in the heat of the ENDSARS carnage. Wisdom of God nevertheless prevailed when he (Tinubu) heeded the nudging of close quarter allies to rather forge the cause.

Great thanks to The Nation newspaper and Television Continental (TVC), both acclaimed to be Tinubu’s personal investment in the media sector. If the claim were to be the truth, then his sagacity in working to prescient planning for the future is yet underrated. Those who knew well about the genesis of The Nation will know that it became the alternative for Tinubu when his efforts to help in the revival of the defunct National Concord newspaper were been thwarted by the heirs apparent in fear of mere misconceptions of his primary objectives. For the avoidance of doubt, the goal of his primary struggle to keep National Concord afloat was to keep its manpower contents in business for their gainful employment to subsist. This speaks particularly to the journalist employees, whose duty call to absolute loyalty to their paymaster, Bashorun MKO Abiola, became unconditional even in the face of manifest threat to their own lives too without exception of their immediate family members.

It was therefore not a matter of coincidence that majority of the Concord’s core media staff would become the pioneer staff of The Nation and the best hands and gurus in the merit enclave of media industry today. It is not also a matter of coincidence that they would yet become available to resume the duty call to absolute loyalty to their paymaster about 30 years after for the same cause – fighting the menace of certificated quacks in the media industry that have become the arsenals of political wars in the hands of Tinubu traducers.

For impressionable fact that is surely indelible in discernible mind years down the line of the Fourth Republic, the Nigerian journalism has retrogressively returned to the pre-Macebuh era which Chief Obafemi Awolowo had cause to describe as haven of “the flotsam and jetsam”. To those who may wish to understand this epochal comparativeness, one may describe it as the analogue equivalence of what we now experience in the contemporary open journalism of the New Media. Explaining the typical write ups of that period, Tatalo Alamu, the Snooper maestro of The Nations wrote: “The typical column was an impressionistic rollercoaster lacking intellectual depth or rigorous engagement; full of sound and fury, brimming with petty sulking and nasty name calling. Conceptual thinking was persona non grata and Litigious writs flew in all directions.”(The Nation, 11/2015p3).

There is no gainsaying that in the electioneering process for the 2023 general elections, 90% of players in the sector classified as orthodox for the core profession of journalism – broadcasting and print alike – threw the caution of ethics to the wind. They switched to merchandising falsehoods against Tinubu as if it had been gazed in their crystal ball that their survival had suddenly depended on that. No thanks to Tribune, The Sun, The Punch which may by categorized as master of all in the use of sophistry and manipulative ethical vibes for its version of anti-Tinubu propaganda. Others included The Telegraph, The Observer and a host of others for the print media.

Of course Arise TV stands out for the broadcasting sector with its parade of undisguised oxymoron of independent partisan programme anchors. Besides an inglorious fine of N2Million slammed on it for broadcasting a purport false “Press Release” by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). it also went down in memory that the TV station incurred sufficient liability of questionable integrity as self-injury of dented image. The Channels TV also played The Punch’s ostrich cleverness counterpart for the broadcasting sector, but not smart enough to escape the hammer of the sector’s regulatory authority to earn two terms penalty of N2million and N5million fines at short intervals.

But to all their malicious praxis of misinforming the public about the person and politics of Tinubu, The Nation and TVC stood almost as the sole media for their counterforce, providing the alternative and real facts clearly in line with Chapter 2 Section 22 that agreeably position the media as Fourth Estate of the Realm. Civics Weekly did not fail complementarily in this regard either within the ambits of its geographical readership coverage.

Bringing all this home to Alimosho Federal Constituency, Civics Weekly had chosen to run its skeletal services with online publications on the politics of Alimosho, to wit the Lagos’. In preliminary assessment of the political sphere of Alimosho, the former deputy governor of Lagos State, Orelope-Adefulire may have become domineering in the magazine's news and features publication coverage. It must be understood that this was never a deliberate planning as millers of the rumour have predicated their basis of the lukudi gift. Rather it is a consequence of who truly makes the factual news that may not necessarily call this magazine to caution of “walking the tight rope” as Olajuyigbe quoted Alhaji Ajose to hold in principle professional principle and would aptly advise practitioners for balancing of fact.

Her Excellency, who is currently the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals (SSAP-SDG), evidently appears to be the local victim of the Asiwaju’s experience in the national fronts. A lot of mischiefs and false information have been swirled around her but with the irony that billows of the smoke ooze out from her own progressives’ political constituency. And yet she remains the significant visage of exemplary performance the APC could flaunt for the pride of governance in Alimosho. But to her traducers, to smear her person with ugly grease of a mediocre is a greater cause than projection of any APC value she brings to the people far and near.

Interestingly, like the intriguing cause underpinning the case of Asiwaju’s intra and extra party foes which he had cause to describe as “epidemic of COVID-23 Virus” in the heat of fiendish APC onslaught against him in 2020, the mission of Adefulire’s Intra Party Foes (IPF) is to kill her potential to assume the leadership of Alimosho APC as tendentiously becoming more feasible every passing day. It is only curious that while this magazine sees that as intra-party struggle for power, her oppositions are not willing to reason with the magazine that its altruistic duty to feed the public with valuable information only coincides with their own basis of pains that Her Excellency is receiving her desirable attention.

No reasonable media organization fabricates news around an event or personality it is not invited to cover, irrespective of imperative to scoop for one in snooping around. And no reasonable media organization would be willing to force a desirable rejoinder on an unwilling party to a subject of news at stake, irrespective of any imperative basis for balancing of fact. Above all this, it is trite that news of interest to media organization is bound to naturally flow from around and about heads of institutions or the central figure in any issue at stake. These are the three reasons Joke Orelope could appear to dominate Civics Weekly publications in sharp contrast to the warped mind of her oppositions that have chosen to maliciously accuse her of giving N2million to influence such attention. For one, Mama is not a media freak. And to much that this magazine had come to know about her, she is one that holds the philosophy of a Yoruba wisdom that Ipako o gbo ‘suti! – one that never borders about badmouthing against her in so far she is not confronted with it. As such, she does not come forth as fame buyer.

The import of all this is to conclude that babu lukudi! And as Chief Obey concluded in that lyrics, ko si lukudi rara o! Ise ole lole n je. That is to say there was no any gift of N2million to Civics Weekly from any quarters. However, granted that it was maliciously prophesized and gaullibly spread, Civics weekly has here proclaimatively discussed it. Against all odds, if the power of Emilokan as confessed by the tongue of Asiwaju could become the "God's Will, Allah's Way", so shall it be that the money will drop in. We need it for our ongoing website development and to reposition our mainstream publishing line. Apemora la n pe temidire!