Culled from LIB
Read journalist Femi Owolabi's incisive and different argument
below...
“If you do not know Nicholas Ibekwe, he is currently the most
talked about Premium Times journalist who ‘exposed’ the bribery
deal between popular Nigerian pastor, T.B Joshua and the
journalists who went to his Synagogue Church of All Nation,
where a collapsed building killed many. I have followed Nicholas’
tweets as they were consistently retweeted into my Twitter
timeline. He is angry about many things; that Lagos Governor
Fashola met with Joshua behind closed doors, and after the
meeting, dodged reporters, and perhaps his most prioritized anger;
how Joshua offered N50,000 bribe to each journalist at the
press conference of September 14. He soon released a recording
of the bribery deal he had alleged. And then, on the 23rd of
September [yesterday], he eventually came out with his story:
“Why I exposed T.B. Joshua for bribing journalists.”
So, why did Nicholas publish the audio? “…when I woke up last
Saturday morning and saw the picture of President Goodluck
Jonathan shaking hands with a grinning TB Joshua with headlines
like ‘Jonathan consoles TB Joshua,’ I said damn it! I couldn’t
stomach this blatant impunity.”
“Journalists shouldn’t be seen or heard telling the prime suspect
they would write ‘just like you said’ after he offered to buy
their consciences with N50, 000,” he also said.”
“I hadn’t listened to the audio. But in Nicholas’ story published
in Premium Times, the audio was reproduced. I reached for my
earpiece and gave that audio a rapt attention. Four minutes or
there about. Perhaps I didn’t get the real thing, I played it
again. And then, again. Time wouldn’t allow me, I would have
transcribed here. Only first-class thinkers would agree with me.
That audio I listened to has nothing to do with a bribery deal.
Wait, you can call for my head later. Go back to that audio and
listen again! In the audio, we hear Joshua announcing some 750k;
to be shared, 50k each to journalists, to fuel their car. Some
ask questions about the issue at hand, and Joshua– in a tone
that depicts sobriety– answers them. And, as they round off,
Joshua asks, ‘So, what are you going to write?’ and they all
laugh at what seem a sarcastic remark from Joshua. I laughed,
too.”
“In his story, however, Nicholas argued, “He clearly meant for
the money to influence the reporting of the event, ‘So what are
you going to write?’” he had asked. That makes it a bribe.
Simple.’’
"Your head is in the air. Such is the problem when you are
highly opinionated. By what logical conclusion do we pronounce
that bribery?”
“Let me quickly state that it is wrong for Governor Fashola and
President Jonathan to be seen patting Joshua’s shoulder over the
collapsed building that was largely his fault. And of course, this
is not an attempt to write in defence of Joshua. If you care to
know, I may soon renounce my membership of the Pentecostal
movement, following many atrocities within this Movement that do
not stand well with me.”
“We are only stupid to assume 750k is money enough a bribe
from T.B Joshua to hush journalists. The story was already in
the mainstream media. I have watched NEMA PRO on Channels
TV lamenting the difficulties they were having with T.B Joshua’s
church authority. All had become clearer that there was illegal
addition of storeys to the building which eventually resulted in the
collapse. And even Joshua himself knows that the ‘hovering craft’
tale is not buyable. So, why exactly would he bribe journalists
with 750k?”
“What is my point? That 50k is appropriately called honorarium.
If after the announcement of that 50k for journalists to fuel
their car and that Nicholas had rejected, he was then called back
to further negotiate an increase, then it becomes a bribe! They are
desperate about hiding something! Oxford dictionary helps us with
the definition of an honorarium: ‘A payment given for professional
services that are rendered nominally without charge.’ T.B. Joshua
is no fool to think 750k is okay to bribe journalists so the
story is not exposed. That is simply honorarium, and it follows
the tradition of the church.”
“On the other hand, Oxford dictionary says this about bribe: ‘A
sum of money or other inducement offered or given to bribe
someone.’ Is Nicholas insinuating that 50k to fuel his car poses
a bribery threat? Is it that Nicholas couldn’t have accepted that
50k and still go ahead to publish his investigative findings? When
such honorariums are doled out, no journalist is held by any
obligatory terms to accept. Depending on the circumstances
surrounding the story, I, as a [freelance] journalist may accept
or reject such honorarium. It would take the next lifetime to have
me bribed so I won’t expose a story. If you decide to force the
‘honorarium’ on me, I will take it. I have a network of friends
whose stomachs are an empty tank of beer. They will beer with
that money and that story you are desperate in hiding from the
public would have a smooth ride to the press.”
“So, like Nicholas, if I were at the meeting with T.B Joshua, I
would have rejected the honorarium offer. But, I will not refer to
it as bribe.”
“Well, bribery is a criminal offense. And if Nicholas insists this
is a bribe deal, he shouldn’t hesitate in writing the lawyer, Femi
Falana, on the need to take this case up.”
“It is no news, that journalists in Nigeria are underpaid. Nicholas,
in his story, admits this. According towww.payscale.com, a
[USA] journalist earns an average salary of $36,834 per year.
According to me, a Nigerian journalist’s pay in a year is around
$6,000. It is not totally a bad pay. What is bad is the delay
and irregularities in the payment. While I was covering Osun
election, I interviewed an academic, Babatunde Bakare, at the
Bowen University. I didn’t know him from anywhere. After the
interview, he asked me how I was surviving as a journalist. I
told him I have other things that I do that pay my bills. Even
though I wasn’t seriously investigating any story, I was just
seeking the opinion of an academic on the election, Babatunde felt
obliged to give me something to support my transport and
logistics. He would later tell me that until his recent appointment
as an academic, he was a senior producer/scriptwriter for one of
Africa’s largest TVs, AIT. And he wasn’t paid salary in the
last ten months he had worked with AIT.”
“I also stopped taking Sam Nda-Isaiah’s presidential ambition
seriously the day I heard he owed his reporters at Leadership
Newspaper, four month salary. It took a Twitter/Facebook
protest to get Sam to bow to his employees’ demands. These
delays, irregularities, underpayment, are not justifiable reasons to
accept bribe. No, they are not. These reasons, however, justify
the collection of an honorarium, such type that does not mean
you should report a black story as white.”
“Nicholas, then, advises journalists to ‘explore other related and
legitimate means of making money like researching, writing, and
editing reports for NGO…’ This is the silliest of all advices.
Journalism is a professional job. The burden of researching,
investigating a story, is already time consuming. News are time
bound, and Nicholas risks his job with Premium Times if he fails
to beat deadlines for the kind of ‘pending stories’ he mentions in
his piece. I make money as a private academic researcher. The
months I have more than two research jobs, I suspend my
journalistic activities. And the day I become a full time journalist,
I should resign as a researcher. Journalistic work is enough work
to get enough pay if things were right.”
“As I conclude, I should raise an issue. After the three day
media/blogger interactive forum in Ekiti in February, participants
were each offered 50k honorarium by the organizers. My name is
Femi Owolabi. I received the N50,000 (of course it never
influenced my subsequent criticisms. Many who also accepted the
money had asked Governor Kayode Fayemi harsher questions
during the forum and even wrote critically about his policies after
we had left). However, Stanley Azuakola, the editor of The
Scoop and Chinedu Ekeke, the editor of Ekekeee in their separate
critical reports, revealed that they politely rejected the N50,000.
Out of about thirty participants, Nicholas Ibekwe inclusive, I am
yet to read of any other apart from Stanley, Chinedu and
Stanley Achonu (the Operations Lead of BudgIT), who didn’t take
that N50,000 honorarium. It is, therefore, logical to believe that
Nicholas Ibekwe, who now accuses his fellow journalists of bribery
when it was honorarium, received such in February in Ekiti.”
“If he didn’t receive that money, here is my apology in advance.”