By Olubiyi Obasa
“Please work on your anger bro; you may be abusing your domestic staff and even your wife! You disappointed me big time.”
The above was a short but sharp reprimand for Chief Femi Fani Kayode, a former Nigerian Aviation Minister and member of the Peoples Democratic Party, by Onyekachi Ubani, an ex-2nd Vice-President of the Nigerian Bar Association.
Since the video showing Fani-Kayode popularly called FFK, giving a Daily Trust reporter, Eyo Charles a caustic dress down went viral, there has been no let-up in the spate of torrential hard knocks being rained on the politician by Nigerians.
Not even his “repentance” seemingly evidenced by his public withdrawal of the word “stupid” being one of the many invectives he poured on the hapless reporter for daring to ask him who was bankrolling his projection-inspection trips to PDP-controlled states, has stopped the floodgate of castigations being unleashed on him.
In a statement made by the Nigerian Union of Journalists and signed by its president, Chris Isiguzo, FFK was described as “an intolerant person, who will not want his activities closely scrutinised by the media.”
“For him to have embarked on an assessment of projects in some states, even though we are yet to be told under what platform he is doing so, it is proper for the media to hold him to account for his actions and decisions.
“His reaction was totally unacceptable, dishonourable and reprehensible and we demand for retraction of his untoward, irritating and awkward utterances, which negate simple decorum and civility,” NUJ said.
Daily Trust, Charles’s employers in a reaction, said, “we stand by Charles, and commend him for his calmness during the ordeal. Daily Trust reporters are responsible professionals, who uphold the tenets of journalism, as well as best practices.”
For the International Press Centre- IPC headed by Lanre Arogundade, the development was “ repulsive and unacceptable since there was nothing wrong with journalist Eyo Charles wanting to know if the tour was an independent initiative or a sponsored one.”
Amnesty International also lent its voice to the condemnation people believe FFK deserves, when it issued a statement saying, “The actions of former minister Femi Fani Kayode during that press conference are an attack on freedom of the press. No journalists should be threatened or insulted for asking a question.
Journalists seek accountability on behalf of the people and don’t deserve the kind of insults and threats Mr. Femi Fani Kayode unleashed on the Daily Trust reporter. These patterns of attacks on media and journalists must end,” he said.
Also commenting on its Twitter handle, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) said, “We condemn reported intimidation, harassment and attack on @daily trust journalist by a former Minister of Aviation Femi Fani-Kayode.”
A journalist, Fejiro Oliver did not flinch in his reaction to FFK’s outburst. He said: “FFK is one opportunistic creature who jumps on people relevance and situation like the Nnamdi Kanu figure to reinvent himself to public consciousness. He does not side with the minority because they are right but because he has seen something to benefit.”
Columnist and Journalism teacher, Farooq Kperogi also castigated FFK. “Rude question? Well, there’s no such thing as a ‘rude question’ in journalism. A Chicago journalist and humorist by the name of Finley Peter Dunne once said, more than a century ago, that, ‘the job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable;’ In other words, journalists have no obligation to comfort the comfortable. Their duty is to afflict the comfortable or, if you like, to be ‘rude; to the comfortable.
“Asking questions that get a politician’s dander up, that inflame a politician’s passions, is a prized skill in journalism. Here’s why: Politicians reveal the most headline-worthy information when reporters cause them to lose control of their emotions. Loss of emotional control forces them to depart from their scripted, predictable, choreographed, and often mendacious and boring performances.
“ It’s precisely because the Daily Trust reporter asked a rude question (which is a charlatan’s term for a great question) that an otherwise unremarkable news conference is now grist for social media and editorial mills.
“Journalists who think the Daily Trust reporter’s question to Fani-Kayode was rude and worthy of censure should go look for another job. They’d do well as publicists.”
Kperoogi went ahead to describe Fani-Kayode as a disturbed mental midget. And not a few persons would disagree with him.
More knocks will certainly come for FFK. Time will tell whether he has truly learned his lesson
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