By Kassim Afegbua
It is trite that Reuben Abati is partisan; he has failed woefully at masking it. He is a full blown PDP card carrying member, who ran election in 2019 for Deputy Governor with Buruji Kashamu, the late alleged drug baron. The pair gave meaning to curiosities around town. Indeed, he ran elections after he was granted bail from the EFCC dungeon after a while as an inmate. He was arrested for alleged fraud while he served as spokesman to President Jonathan. Hitherto, he had always held himself out with bombastic sanctimonious appellations and deportment until the EFCC named and shamed him, and exposed his underbelly. His case file at the EFCC is replete with questionable conduct that falls below the conditionality of that spokesman’s office he held.
After his humiliation from the EFCC, he turned around to tell us of the existence of strange spirits and ghommids that mislead occupants of the Villa, which overpowered him and held him victim. The world does not rate Reuben Abati and his Queen’s speech any higher than a common lickspittle in briefs and a white shirt in EFCC custody. Like Chichidodo birds, the likes of Abati love to wear clean ties and immaculate shirts as emblems of purity and cleanliness; they love to feed on maggots, but hate the foulish smell of faeces. Such is the contradiction of the society in which we live. Those who shouldn’t dare open their polluted mouths to talk, unremittingly beset us with their din, somewhat ridiculing our astuteness. Reuben Abati should till date be covered in sackcloth in a random corner, keeping most reticent. Everywhere his matter was discussed, he was summarized as a let-down.
As a registered card carrying member of the PDP, little wonder Reuben Abati segued into reverie when he hosted Ighodalo on TV; when he goofed as a journalist. Yes, he may have a duty to defend the home of PDP, and to protect his political interest, leading him to prefer Asue Ighodalo and Governor Obaseki, having run election under the same platform as them. Sadly he errs in thinking that even on TV, as a host he can carry out that duty, jettisoning the code and codex of journalistic ethics, just to protect the interest of the PDP. In the 2023 elections, he displayed this arrant nonsense in the same manner; then projecting the aspiration of Atiku Abubakar while running down and virtually eclipsing Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC on TV, as an anchor. He should not do that as an anchor; it is wrong, and amounts to professional misconduct, and is anti-journalism.
He didn’t just stop at taking sides, while asking questions when he hosted the Edo State APC chairman, he sardonically asked the chairman to invite the APC candidate to feature on his program, adding that even if the APC candidate spoke only Benin or Esan language, they would still be happy to have him. Such arrant nonsense!! High handed journalistic irresponsibility and verbal recklessness impertinently coming from a journalist who failed woefully as a spokesman to President Jonathan, and is living as a free man on a lease. A shameless presidental spokesman who was more interested in murky pecuniary exploits while in office, which made him stick his nose in the trough, which largely contributed to the ouster of the former President and eventually manacled him, Abati, landing him in EFCC cell!
Apropos of Senator Monday Okpebholo’s invitation to Arise TV, if Arise TV wishes to interview him, all they need do is invite him; and properly at that. Arise TV and her producer of The Morning Show have never invited the APC candidate for any interview. As a spokesman for the APC Campaign in Edo, I am sure that nobody has invited him directly, through me, or through any other recognized medium respectfully, to discuss the upcoming elections, on any of the television’s programs. Abati should not sit in judgment as an anchor, or verbally invite a candidate through the candidate’s opponent as he did on Monday, 26 August when Asue Ighodalo featured on his show. That Reuben Abati made snide remarks about the APC’s candidate in such a hare-brained, reckless and remiss manner is irresponsible and unwise of him, and unfortunate for the profession.
It is clearly emblematic of his partisanship. His remarks watered down his already apathetic invitation leaving it tantamount to no invitation. We have our wits about us and will not capitulate to anything beneath our honour. It is beneath Senator Monday’s honour to respond to that sham and insult. God only knows where and how Abati spent his tutelage years in the journalism profession. I must say that that singular act of his besmirches his career, disgraces his raising as a journalist, and identifies him as only a journalist of sorts. In saner societies, guests feature on programs at the behest of the host not on the basis of sassy remarks. Impetuous Reuben Abati unfortunately, has hastily concluded that Senator Monday Okpebholo is slaloming around his show. This is incorrect; rather, it is Abati who has clearly exhibited himself as specious and partisan.
Electioneering is not about being voluble, bombastic and being glib. Those are necessary and salient ingredients for people in augury and hope trade. David Ogilvy the great said, “it seems to me that if you are trying to persuade a people to do something, or buy something, you should use their language. The language they use everyday; the language in which they think. We even try to write in the vernacular,” Ogilvy is renowned till date as the greatest advertising agent of all time. Any journalist worth his salt will not abase himself like Abati has, most ostensibly, for what he probably has already been given to eat, or “ just in case.” Senator Monday Okpebholo who Abati attempted to denigrate, is versed in the matters of Edo State and people, and his acceptance across the entire state is vast; I dare say cosmic in size!
He has been campaigning across the state, using English as his language of communication, and has got resounding approbation from all across the state, without needing to ingratiate himself with the people via petty gift and meals like some others are doing: his works, and even his aura and deportment have endeared him to his people. He is fit and proper for the job of Governor, and has all that it takes to take Edo State and people to higher heights. He is no asymptote who aims to employ sophistry, demagoguery and artifice to put Edo people on a treadmill or a “ one chance” life for four to eight years, not even scratching the surface of their needs- no! He is a man with drive and vision; a man with mental and physical models of the station where he wants Edo to be.
He is a go getter, he has been doing things and will continue to do things; and you can take that to the bank! He is an action man.
Arise TV should stop all this journalistic gangsterisms and just remain fair and balanced as a news medium. We decry, deprecate, and condemn in totality the impertuous and reckless attempts by Reuben Abati and Rufai Oseni as TV anchors, to take electioneering to the screen, by craftily denigrating and deriding a more preferred candidate, in a bid to funnel the people towards the candidate of their choice. By this unremitting act of theirs, they have only proven to be venal men of no honour. If Prince Nduka Obaigbena decided to rehabilitate a number of you, who carry yourselves about as professional journalists, much to society’s detriment, it should not under any disguise, warrant your getting so heavily inebriated to the extent of conflating and confusing the role and job of an arbiter with that of a campaign acolyte. If fluency in English language is all that is required to sail through political contestation, Abati would not have failed electorally when he contested. This deliberate act to deride and undermine our candidate to suit the bulbous ego of your preferred candidate will not sail. Edo voters will determine who leads them on the 21st September, 2024.
Afegbua is a former Commissioner for Information in Edo state
