ALBATROSS: MERRY XMAS AND THE SEASONS OF FAKE INTERVIEWS.
The almighty brown envelop is working magically on the Nigerian journalistic landscape in recent times; Starting from enveloping Dasukigate controversial payment of N120 million, to the Newspaper Proprietors' Association of Nigeria, NPAN, through the Publisher of ThisDay Newspaper Obaigethami.
The scandalous chicanery has now metastasized into the straight talk genre of interviews and the centre cannot hold anymore.
Corruption the crooked power of money and material gratification is becoming an albatross to professional journalistic with diligent reporting in our sphere of information sharing and dissemination.
It is now a season of falsehood, untrue, concoction of news, interviews, and press releases.
The Fourth Estate of the Realm praised by Edmund Burke in 1787 has become a shadow of itself in Nigeria.
Voodoo journalist or reporters have taken over our cultured stratosphere with Journalistic heretism, they go panhandling begging for hatchet job from unscrupulous individuals thereby creating a season of anomie and purposelessness in our polity.
The case of prof. Itse Sagay is instructive here, where a fake or should I say fictitious individual surposedly impersonate the erudite scholar via a telephone conversation given to a journalist of Nigeria Tribune. Thus saith the journalist in question.
The truth of the matter in this case would be left to the citizenry to judge.
Just when I thought I am done with falsity in the journalistic terrestial, one is confronted with a rebuttal from honourable Femi Falana (SAN) about a fake interview he never granted.
Here is the Press Release:
"My attention has just been drawn to an obnoxious publication of an interview that I never granted. In the fake interview, I was alleged to have condemned the judgment of the Court of Appeal in respect of the governorship election in Akwa Ibom State. I did not grant the interview ascribed to me by the hack writers. In fact, I could not have condemned the judgment as it is well grounded in law. The so called interview is a hatchet job in every material particular.
Those who know me will attest to the fact that I have never supported the rigging of elections in any manner whatsoever and howsoever. Hence, I have consistently supported the use of PVC and Card Readers which were strenuously opposed by election manipulators in the country. As a lawyer, I have never represented election riggers in any court or tribunal. As a public commentator, I have regularly advocated for the prosecution of election riggers in Nigeria and in other African countries.
Having recently obtained judgments in election petitions that were anchored on the integrity of card readers I could not have challenged the sound and logical judgment of the Court of Appeal which was essentially based on the use of card readers. It is indubitably clear that the hired writers behind the purported interview granted by me are desperately looking for credibility to justify the subversion of the democratic wishes of the people of Akwa Ibom state. I am however compelled to caution the serial riggers of elections in Akwa Ibom to desist from using my name to justify their impunity.
On a personal note, a client of mine, Dr. Ime Umanah was one of the leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Akwa Ibom State who ensured that the wishes of the people were respected this time around. He kept me abreast of developments in the political terrain of Akwa Ibom State until his untimely death in a ghastly road accident while he was travelling to Uyo to attend the court where he was facing a trumped up charge filed against him by the former government. If only for his memory I could never have associated myself with the satanic forces in Akwa Ibom state''. -
Femi Falana SAN
Incidents like these in an environment where freedom of the press and freedom of speech are under threat with Sen. Bala Ibn Na'Allah media censorship bill only give enemies of freedom of expression the guillotine.
We must avoid a situation where a democratic journalistic paradigm metamorphose into an instrumentarium of Terror; Psychological Manipulation, Character Assasination, and Falsehood, because by so doing we are laying a wrong foundation wherein a democratic state might turned dictatorial.
Here we go again faceless people of darkness marauding in the night have decided to use the name and credibility of Cardinal Onaiyekan to propagate their devilish machination with another fake interview.
Today it is Femi Falana, Itsey Sagay, and now Cardinal Onaiyekan. Who knows tomorrow it might be the president.
To be for warned is to be forearmed.
OTUNBA ADE ILEMOBADE is a philosopher
Twitter: @pearl2prince
The scandalous chicanery has now metastasized into the straight talk genre of interviews and the centre cannot hold anymore.
Corruption the crooked power of money and material gratification is becoming an albatross to professional journalistic with diligent reporting in our sphere of information sharing and dissemination.
It is now a season of falsehood, untrue, concoction of news, interviews, and press releases.
The Fourth Estate of the Realm praised by Edmund Burke in 1787 has become a shadow of itself in Nigeria.
Voodoo journalist or reporters have taken over our cultured stratosphere with Journalistic heretism, they go panhandling begging for hatchet job from unscrupulous individuals thereby creating a season of anomie and purposelessness in our polity.
The case of prof. Itse Sagay is instructive here, where a fake or should I say fictitious individual surposedly impersonate the erudite scholar via a telephone conversation given to a journalist of Nigeria Tribune. Thus saith the journalist in question.
The truth of the matter in this case would be left to the citizenry to judge.
Just when I thought I am done with falsity in the journalistic terrestial, one is confronted with a rebuttal from honourable Femi Falana (SAN) about a fake interview he never granted.
Here is the Press Release:
"My attention has just been drawn to an obnoxious publication of an interview that I never granted. In the fake interview, I was alleged to have condemned the judgment of the Court of Appeal in respect of the governorship election in Akwa Ibom State. I did not grant the interview ascribed to me by the hack writers. In fact, I could not have condemned the judgment as it is well grounded in law. The so called interview is a hatchet job in every material particular.
Those who know me will attest to the fact that I have never supported the rigging of elections in any manner whatsoever and howsoever. Hence, I have consistently supported the use of PVC and Card Readers which were strenuously opposed by election manipulators in the country. As a lawyer, I have never represented election riggers in any court or tribunal. As a public commentator, I have regularly advocated for the prosecution of election riggers in Nigeria and in other African countries.
Having recently obtained judgments in election petitions that were anchored on the integrity of card readers I could not have challenged the sound and logical judgment of the Court of Appeal which was essentially based on the use of card readers. It is indubitably clear that the hired writers behind the purported interview granted by me are desperately looking for credibility to justify the subversion of the democratic wishes of the people of Akwa Ibom state. I am however compelled to caution the serial riggers of elections in Akwa Ibom to desist from using my name to justify their impunity.
On a personal note, a client of mine, Dr. Ime Umanah was one of the leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Akwa Ibom State who ensured that the wishes of the people were respected this time around. He kept me abreast of developments in the political terrain of Akwa Ibom State until his untimely death in a ghastly road accident while he was travelling to Uyo to attend the court where he was facing a trumped up charge filed against him by the former government. If only for his memory I could never have associated myself with the satanic forces in Akwa Ibom state''. -
Femi Falana SAN
Incidents like these in an environment where freedom of the press and freedom of speech are under threat with Sen. Bala Ibn Na'Allah media censorship bill only give enemies of freedom of expression the guillotine.
We must avoid a situation where a democratic journalistic paradigm metamorphose into an instrumentarium of Terror; Psychological Manipulation, Character Assasination, and Falsehood, because by so doing we are laying a wrong foundation wherein a democratic state might turned dictatorial.
Here we go again faceless people of darkness marauding in the night have decided to use the name and credibility of Cardinal Onaiyekan to propagate their devilish machination with another fake interview.
Today it is Femi Falana, Itsey Sagay, and now Cardinal Onaiyekan. Who knows tomorrow it might be the president.
To be for warned is to be forearmed.
OTUNBA ADE ILEMOBADE is a philosopher
Twitter: @pearl2prince
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