 |
| Reuben Abati |
President Goodluck Jonathan's choice of Dr Reuben Abati as his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity may be working for him after all. Any time the Nigerian President receives knocks and criticisms fired at him from all sides by the opposition in the country, Abati comes handy to explain his principal's actions or inactions and comments in the most professional manner that will go down well for media practitioners.
Instead of inciting more negative debates on issues related to the presidency with abusive attacks on critics, Abati struggles to create a nexus of understanding between the president and the public. One could easily see the distinction between employing a professional to do the job of a spokesperson and just picking a politician to fill that position for political gains. A PR practitioner, according to global ethics guiding the profession, must always bear in mind that he should avoid abusive and offensive language in the course of defending the image of the person or institution he is employed to work for.
This entails that regardless of how odious the verbal diatribe launched against his principal might appear to be, he must not employ such obnoxious utterances or leave the substance to tackle the mundane whenever he chooses to react. With this guiding principle, Abati feels that his approach to his new job description of image making must come to terms with the critical aspect within his personality, if he must also maintain the standard of ideal journalism.
It is not surprising that when a report flooded the internet last week that the President passed a damning verdict on the media, saying that it was highly politicised and advised his ministers not to allow themselves to be assessed by the media, Abati knew that he had to step in to make clarifications.
A website had quoted the president to have said last Wednesday when some ministers signed the performance contract that the media is now the voice of the powerful people and so the ministers have to have a way of assessing themselves other than the media. "Before, the media used to be the voice of the ordinary people, but now the media is the voice of those who own the media houses and those who own the media have private jets and those who have private jets are not ordinary people".
But clarifying the matter while speaking to State House Correspondents at the weekend, Abati warned on the danger of relying on the online media for information. He said, "The online media is quite a vast territory where all kinds of things can be said either by persons under their own names or under pseudonyms; in fact you'd read many things online posted by anonymous persons. In the age of the internet which is synonymous with the age of freedom, anybody including a market woman, a carpenter, a trader, anybody at all, can set up a blog site and you can put anything on your blog site and make any claim, true and untrue.
"The online medium is perhaps the ultimate demonstration of freedom in the 21st century. However, as beautiful as the information age is, the people who deal with the business of information must realise that the management of information also requires responsibility. Freedom must go with responsibility, not licentiousness".
On Jonathan's Attack On The Media
Explaining what President Jonathan meant when he allegedly launched a diatribe on media owners, Abati said, "Having made this preliminary statement, let me say very clearly that it would be wrong to say that President Jonathan does not like the media or that he holds the media in contempt which is the impression the online publication you are referring to seems to convey. Please note that it is under President Jonathan's watch that the media has enjoyed the largest scope of freedom in recent Nigerian history. It is President Jonathan who signed the freedom of information bill into law, allowing a wider scope of freedom and access not just for journalists but for all individuals.
"There are many countries in the world, where out of the fear of the power of the social media, the internet is deliberately blocked, scrambled, restricted. Media houses are shut down, journalists are harassed. No such thing is happening in Nigeria. Journalists are free; they enjoy unrestricted access, they are allowed to do their work. President Jonathan himself identifies personally with the new media. It is not for nothing that he is regarded as a Facebook President. He ran a presidential campaign mobilising Nigerian youths using online resources: Facebook, twitter, even BB. He is a modern president who values public opinion.
"Don't forget that at every turn, President Jonathan has always identified with the media. He has always shown great solidarity with the media. In the last one year alone, he has had at least three or four media chats making himself available for scrutiny and interrogation by the media. In the last one year also, you will recall that in many of the major events involving the media establishment, and the media community President Jonathan has been involved. When the NUJ, the Nigerian Union of Journalists held its delegates conference this year, President Jonathan was the key note speaker at the opening ceremony.
"As I speak with you, the Nigerian Guild of Editors is going to have its annual conference, its biennial conference in September and as part of the activities leading to that event, the executives of the Guild of Editors will pay a courtesy visit on President Jonathan. The President has already given approval. He says they are welcome at anytime.
"Within the last one year, President Jonathan must have met and interacted with journalists, Nigerian journalists at various levels a thousand and more times. That is not a president who holds the media in contempt. If the President made any comment at all, the comment must have been simply a way of reminding the media of the responsibility that goes with freedom. In other words, the social responsibility of the mass media. Nobody can argue against the fact that the media has a constitutional responsibility to discharge, this is well spelt out in section 22 of the constitution. President Jonathan appreciates that. His point in this particular instance is not that people should disregard the media. No. I think whoever reported the story added spice, pepper and 'maggi', if I may use that expression.
"The president's position in this matter is that the media is important to the national development process, hence, the media should stand above the limitations of politics, of ethnicity, of sectarian interests and be an impartial observer and critic of government and society. And I do not see what is wrong in this principled position but you know we live in a society where people like to take statements out of context. President Jonathan remains a friend of the media. He remains convinced that public opinion is central and pivotal in a democracy and this is why at every opportunity he engages the media. This is why at every point he expresses solidarity with the media and of course he has many friends in the media. And that is why of course you know there is a media and publicity department that he takes very seriously in the presidency".
The FOIA and Access to Information
When asked to react to reports that ministries, department and agencies, including the presidency and the office of the attorney general of the federation have denied journalists access to information against the freedom of information act signed by the President, the presidential spokesman said, "When this whole thing about freedom of information law came up, many seminar were organized, there was even a freedom of information coalition. I must have attended the early workshops, quite a number of them. And as a journalist, and a public affairs intellectual, I must have given one or two keynote lectures on the subject. I think there may be need for both government and civil society groups to organise more conferences, workshops, and seminars to educate and enlighten the public on what the law is actually all about and how it works.
"President Jonathan signed the bill into law out of the conviction that an open society is preferable to a closed society and that democracy will thrive best in an open society. But the law is not President Jonathan's personal property. The law is effective when it is tested and when a law is made, the law makers in their wisdom also insert into that law the mechanism, the processes for testing the law. This is why we say that the test of a law is in its implementation".
Leadership Newspaper
No comments:
Post a Comment