Now that the Beechcraft plane crash site and the Black Box have been found, it is instructive to reflect on some of the issues thrown up, mostly by the press, while the search lasted in the dense mangrove forest of the Obudu area with lot of mountains and trees that measure over 300 feet above sea level.

It was rumoured in the media that the plane reported to have crashed, had actually been moved to a hideout in a neighbouring African country to evade confiscation in the face of ongoing probe of a certain ex-governor who is said to own the aircraft. These false reports came with outright insinuations of a grand cover up by the government of President Yar’Adua to protect the ex-governor who is believed to have bankrolled the Yar’Adua presidential campaign.

This was not the first instance of these calculated mischievous attempts to tarnish the image of the Yar’Adua regime and put question marks on its resolve to fight corruption with the rule of law. Even before the Beechcraft incident, it was almost an unwritten rule among fifth columnists to ensure that nothing other than falsehood was published regarding the Yar’Adua regime. For instance, it was peddled without evidence that former Governor of Delta State James Ibori was never going to be arrested nor prosecuted by the Yar’Adua government. But when Ibori got arrested, they changed their story that, his arrest was just make-believe and that he was going to be set free after a shoddy prosecution. We are still waiting for this to happen.

So when the beechcraft airplane suddenly disappeared mid-flight without any trace, it provided another opportunity for the fertile but evil imaginations of the government’s self-made antagonists to bud. Beginning with some famous ‘internet based’ reporters, (which are fast becoming infamous for there panache for supplanting speculative journalism for investigative journalism), some national dairies regrettably joined the train. Daily Tribune in her online edition of 25^th April 2008 put it as a bold headline ‘Incredible: Ex-gov diverted 'missing' plane - Plane found in an African country’. A paragraph in that false report quoted what they referred to as ‘reliable security sources’ while another paragraph referred to the source as ‘informed sources’. Curiously the report was largely anonymous as instead of indicating the real authors, they simply put ‘by our reporters’ under the catchy headline.

Hear Tribune: ‘Reliable security sources indicated that the aircraft, owned by the former governor, was flown to a West African country as directed by the embattled ex-governor who is facing corruption charges at a Federal High Court’. As it has turned out now, we know that there was no ‘reliable security source’ afterall neither was there an ‘informed source’ anywhere. The Tribune simply lied to the public in their quest to sell their wares and perhaps peddle speculative journalism in lieu of undercover journalism, which they clearly lack the capacity to deliver. But great damage was done not only to the image of the Aviation Industry but the presidency as well.

Now that the truth is out, integrity demands that the Tribune and all other media houses that carried this misleading junk in the name of investigative report, should officially retract them and also tender unreserved apology to the general public for misinforming them.

In exercising freedom of expression, our media houses must draw a line between truth and falsehood. Nothing in the constitution permits the press to become merchants of deceit. Those shouting rule of law should point out where the freedom to peddle lies is enshrined in our constitution. The basic code of journalism that says ‘facts are sacred’ is still valid. To hide under the guise of freedom of speech and commit acts of false propaganda against individuals or the Sate is unethical and condemnable. 

This takes me to the recent closure of Channels Television over a false report it aired in one of its broadcasts. The station had obviously mistaken the source of the false report that President Yar’Adua was set to resign on health grounds after a cabinet reshuffle, to be from the News Agency of Nigeria and had gone ahead to broadcast it. The station later retracted the story and offered an apology to the government. On the basis of this many commentators have sought to condemn the government for the closure, maintaining that it contradicts the rule of law mantra of the government and also runs contrary to the freedom of the press provision in the constitution.

On the surface these arguments look credible and even patriotic but a little scratch could expose the hasty zest from a habitual set of anti-Yar’Adua critics who are always on the look out for any infinitesimal opportunity to whack the government. Was Channels right not to have crosschecked the veracity of the information they got before rushing to air? The answer is NO. Arguments the NAN sometimes uses free email service to dish out news are very shallow. The question is, have they received any news item from NAN through this particular E-mail address before? I doubt if the answer could be yes since NAN has denounced ownership of that particular E-mail account. Therefore Channels in their alacrity to be first-to-town with a sensitive news item like resignation of the President of Africa’s most populous nation neglected their duty to ensure accuracy of their report and thereby committed an offence punishable under the NBC guidelines.

They argue that all the government needed to do was to refute the false report and nothing else. I disagree. All over the world, freedom of speech is regulated for the sake of public security and stability and that is why we have the NBC guidelines to guide broadcasting organisations in Nigeria. There is no absolute freedom of speech anywhere in the world especially the type that seeks to handcuff the government and prevent it from punishing media houses that publish offensive content that threatens public security or morality. You cannot in the name of freedom of speech for example air pornographic content in American airwaves without expecting retribution from the state. I am not sure Nigeria has become more democratic than the USA. I maintain that there is a place for punishment of erring outfits as refuting false reports does not exclude the need to punish offending media houses to serve as a deterrent to others.

It would have amounted to an act of irresponsibility and lack of security alertness for the government to have ignored the evil report from Channels for the fear of being called names by the same press that has orchestrated this ignoble campaign of misrepresentation against it.

For avoidance of doubt, the NBC guidelines clearly recommends ‘immediate’ shutdown/seal-up of the offending transmitter when that transmitter commits a Class A offence. This recommendation is not valid only under a military regime. It is valid under a democratic government as well. So arguments that the seal-up contradicts the rule of law are simply too petty and incongruent with the facts of the matter. These commentators should have concerned themselves with proving that what the station committed fell short of a Class-A offence. Failure to do this and choosing rather to blackmail the government on the rule of law is rather mischievous and makes these arguments not just cynical but also nauseating.

Lets look at the practical implication of the recommendation of immediate shut down of a station that commits a class A offence. For all practical purposes, if the shutdown is going to be immediate, it has to be at least within the first few hours of the commission of the offence. Obviously this does not leave any room for a petition to be written, a panel set up to try the station, find it guilty and then apply the punishment, as some analysts want us to believe. What the NBC guidelines envisaged here is a very drastic repercussion for any station that is careless enough to commit a class A offence. So if the SSS moved in immediately to enforce this law as they did in the case of Channels, then I don’t know which rule of law they contravened. So indeed I dare say that the government acted in accordance with the NBC guidelines and by extension, the rule of law.

But should the government have tempered justice with mercy, considering that Channels has been a responsible media outfit these past 15 years? To this I would say yes. This is where critics have a point. The government can exercise its prerogative to pardon an errant station especially when the station has apologised for its error. I believe it is this same consideration that has made the government to reopen the station just two days after the closure.

This should serve an eye-opener to other media houses that their job comes with enormous responsibility with much potential for infringement on public security. Information must therefore be managed in such a way that it promotes public good and not otherwise. Media houses should train and re-train their staff to acquire investigative skills and shy away from speculative reporting.

Robot  # 1 | 25.09.2008 19:51

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