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Reuben Abati, Journalists and The Right To Wear Suit

February 7, 2009

Virtually everybody on the blog is upset or working themselves up to get upset that the applications for land allocation made by some journalists have been approved by the Honourable Minister. I do not know why, but Reuben Abati looks like the flag bearer of the expression of fear that plebeians are about to dine with nobles. What this means of course is that those “press boys” may begin to hob knob with retired Army generals, Inspectors Generals and Permanent Secretaries.

Virtually everybody on the blog is upset or working themselves up to get upset that the applications for land allocation made by some journalists have been approved by the Honourable Minister. I do not know why, but Reuben Abati looks like the flag bearer of the expression of fear that plebeians are about to dine with nobles. What this means of course is that those “press boys” may begin to hob knob with retired Army generals, Inspectors Generals and Permanent Secretaries.


They may now get their newspapers delivered at 6 am on the doorstep of their Government Reservation Area houses at their Maitama or Asokoro mansion just like big men, big Ministers, big contractors and foreign envoys and other masters. The aggressive and caustic comments are so disturbing that you begin to fear that these commentators would faint if these critical men of the pen begin to carry golf bags pretty soon.  And given the profile of the anger expressed in their writings, the Golf club and indeed neighbours around it may witness the power of their anger as they fling golf balls recklessly like angry poor men. These are not the exact expressions but believe me, this is what one can feel about the emotions on display.

When I first read this report, my immediate reaction was to consider the action of the Minister worthy of commendation and to congratulate the Yar’Adua Government for breaking with selective allocations as usual. It is the norm that immediately a new Minister, Director general or INEC Chairman resumes, he is allocated a jeep, a driver, a police orderly, a backup vehicle and two big plots of land in Asokoro and Maitama as take off grant. The rest of us applicants fill forms, pay money to submit them and wait forever until we are made to understand that there are no more lands. But we are diplomatically referred to some agents through whom we buy second hand at 12 times Government price.  That ordinary men, even journalists, get some attention, to me is commendable. But many journalists cannot read the statement of the great Honourble Minister properly. And this could send very dangerous statements to a Government that might seriously want to amend the crude old ways of doing business.

It is the right of every Nigerian to have equal access to lands anywhere in Nigeria on the basis of the serial number of his application form. In other words, first come first allocated. By the way, I know of no serious Country in the World where the job of a Minister includes that of a commercial Real Estate Agent or estate surveyor. Only in Nigeria does a Governor blackmail opponents to join his party by dangling a miserable certificate of occupancy. But for this corrupt latitude to steal by other means, past Presidents and office holders have appropriated disproportionately, our National patrimony. Obasanjo cannot go to an Estate Company to bid for those huge hectares of Land in Otta or the latest one in Badagry  which he has acquired for a University without accounting for the funds required for an appropriate commercial transaction. He would have had to pay in billions and the press would have had him for breakfast like they did on hearing the financial cost of the Transcorp transaction. Atiku cannot indeed source for funds for the hundreds of hectares for his own University in Adamawa either. Poor Reuben whose only application is for a miserly one plot has not appropriated Government land, has not stolen Government money, has not jumped the queue and has indeed not been proven to be holding a sword ready to chop the Ministers head off in case he refuses to append his signature on his application. He has only exercised his rights as we all can if we wish to be ambitious.

I am not a journalist, but, honestly now that we are on that subject, I might as well confess that on retirement, rather than go to the farm as Army Generals feel compelled to launder their accumulated assets, or find comfort on the golf course, I have been thinking seriously of going to a proper Journalism School and settle down to writing columns and articles. Thinking of that right now brings a smile of mischief to my lips. The Government Ministers I will smack, the President I will torment, the masses I shall defend. Why would a young brilliant mind like that of Abati settle for writing columns and delivering lectures when brittle and soluble minds find fortunes in the Civil service or indeed in second generation Banks. It must be that love of mischief that I intend to pursue later that he discovered early.  But what saddens me is that we are almost being persuaded that homelessness must be a pre requisite for the fun. And I don’t like that one bit.

I expected journalists to rise up as one and defend themselves by defending Reuben Abati. But I can sympathise with them, their wrong reading of what this is all about, their petty jealousies, even their poor perception of self.  Do you not wonder why nobody is angry when a civil servant on level 07 dresses to kill in three piece pure wool suit with bow tie to match and rides a Toyota Avalon 2008 model to the office? But when a journalist rides a Tokunbo 1978 around town, the eruption is loud. Brown envelope is accused and nobody expects him to wear anything other than a fairly used shirt torn at the lapels. That is not right. That is not what I see of journalists on CNN. And certainly, the apologetic questions that he is expected to deliver to the Honourable but condescending Minister  in Abuja is in sharp contrast to the hard and audacious questions Barak Obama suffers from journalists at presidential briefings at the white House. Yet the Nigerian journalist appears to me the most courageous, the most prepared and certainly the most supportive of the irritating but desirable democracy we have today. Many have defended the people at the risk of their lives without questioning the deprivations that this rewards them with even now. Kunle Ajibade, Femi Ojudu, Soji Omotunde, Bayo Onanuga, practically surrendered their lives before God came to the rescue. Yet we cannot see them as individuals with hopes and aspirations for comfortable and decent lives. Some of the very brilliant young minds in journalism like Simon Kolawole, Louis Odion, Olaniyonu are among the best that any Country can parade. If we have concluded that they do not deserve plots in Ikoyi or Maitama, perhaps we do not deserve them.

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