As the march towards 2023 general election gets hotter, the Boards of Editors of THISDAY newspapers and ARISE TV have demanded an urgent investigation of the presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Bola Tinubu, for his links to narcotics dealings in the United States.
The Boards of Editors of both media outfits owned by Prince Nduka Obaigbena, specifically called out three federal agencies – National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) to do their work in that regard.
The Boards of Editors demanded from the federal agencies, in the alternative, for the report of such if they had investigated Tinubu already.
“Have the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), the Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) investigated this? We need their reports and clarity, one way or the other, in this most important national security question on the 2023 elections with implications for our democracy.”
They accused Tinubu of trying to stifle the news outlet and the Nigerian media and forcing it to dance to the candidate’s tune.
This was contained in a joint statment by THISDAY and ARISE sent to THE WHISTLER on Monday titled, ‘Tinubu and THISDAY/ARISE Media Group and the Attack on Free Speech.”
The matter between the APC Presidential Campaign Council and the Board of THISDAY/Arise went bad after the latter published a report on November 18, 2022 that alleged the death of Mueez Adegboyega Akande who is an associate of Tinubu also mentioned in a drug trafficking investigation in the US in 1993.
But the APC PCC denied the report, accusing the newspaper of bias and that ThisDay/Arise mixed up the identity of two brothers.
“Unknown to ThisDay, their imagined hibernating Kolapo was an Accord Party candidate for the House of Representative some years back,” Bayo Onanuga, Director of Media and Publicity, APC PCC.
In the statament, ThisDay/Arise is insisting that “Till date we have not heard from the family. The fact is that mistakes in reporting the death of someone who may not have died is not unusual in the media. But then a quick statement from the family of the person so reported to have died.”
According to the newspaper, despite the absence of a statement from the family of Mueez denying his death, members of the APC PCC have continued to attack the papar.
The statement said, “In at least four separate press statements and interviews in the last three weeks, the APC PCC Director of Media and Publicity, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, and its Adviser on Strategic Communications, Mr Dele Alake, instead of factually responding to the issues or sending a petition to our Ombudsman, have variously accused the group of bias against its candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“They are wrong. Truth and the pursuit thereof, and the reporting of facts is no bias. The duo has taken unprofessionalism, recklessness, picayune politics and blackmail to a new art form.”
Reports and documents on public space claim that the APC presidential candidate was shrouded in a drug allegation in the US where he forfeited $460,000 to the US government.
The statement added, “It is important to state that for national security, foreign policy, and national interest, any candidate aspiring to be the President of The Federal Republic of Nigeria should not shy away from media scrutiny concerning any link with drug trafficking, or be associated with anyone so involved, however tangentially.
“It is a national security question for which all patriots must seek answers: it goes to the heart of our nascent democracy and indeed our political stability. We need full and complete answers on the entire circumstances leading to the forfeiture.
“Nigeria cannot afford a Noriega moment despite some of the acrobatics of APC spokesmen trying to make light of forfeiture of funds linked to drug trafficking.
“Have the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), the Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) investigated this? We need their reports and clarity, one way or the other, in this most important national security question on the 2023 elections with implications for our democracy.”
The Board further accused two senior APC campaign officials of separately requesting that THISDAY Editor and columnist, Shaka Momodu, and The Morning Show co-host on ARISE News, Rufai Oseni be moved from their current role.
According to the Board, failure to adhere will attract severe punishment if their principal, Tinubu emerges president in the 2023 presidential election.
The Board noted, “We also note that two senior APC campaign officials had separately requested that we move THISDAY Editor and columnist, Shaka Momodu, and The Morning Show co-host on ARISE News, Rufai Oseni, from their current positions to stop the attacks or get reprieve from a future Tinubu presidency.
“The Boards of Editors of THISDAY Newspapers and the ARISE News Channel would like to state without equivocation that we do not fire journalists because of their views. Facts are sacred and opinions free is the age-old dictum to which all free-thinking men subscribe. We allow our editors the freedom to air their opinions unfettered and have created The Office of the Ombudsman to take any complains and discipline any abuse of office by any of our staff members.”
*Culled from The Whistler
Tinubu fires back…..
NDUKA OBAIGBENA AND HIS THISDAY/ARISE NEWS HYPOCRITICAL GRANDSTANDING ON PUBLIC MORALITY
It is laughably tragic that the Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of THISDAY and Arise News Television, Mr.Nduka Obaigbena, has the temerity to pretend to be a guardian of public morality in contemporary Nigerian media practice.
The fact that this character is an unscrupulous hustler and blackmailer who has done tremendous damage to the journalism profession in the country, is well known within and beyond the profession.
Hiding under his media houses so-called Boards of Editors, Obaigbena, who is one of the most irresponsible media owners in the country, with scant regard for corporate good governance and ethics, issued a statement Monday accusing the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) Director of Media and Publicity, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, and Adviser, Media and Communication, Mr. Dele Alake of attempting to silence independent media and bully the press ahead of next year’s general election.
This allegation is baseless.
The statement published on the front page of THISDAY is illustrative of the penchant of the two media houses under Obaigbena’s corrupting influence to peddle falsehood and engage in brazen political partisanship, contrary to the ethics of journalism practice.
It is instructive that Obaigbena’s media group is isolated in making this frivolous allegation against the duo. Not only does THISDAY newspaper publish unfounded rumours masquerading as truth, many of its columnists substitute vile and vulgar abuse for sound logic and informed analyses while its television anchors heckle and harass their guests, particularly those of the APC in their jaundiced, flagrantly unprofessional programmes.
We recall that both THISDAY and ARISE Television sought to bully and compel the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, into attending its Town Hall meetings with presidential candidates, despite the media team’s explanation that it would not attend such programmes organised in a haphazard and uncoordinated manner by individual media houses.
Each candidate’s campaign team has the right to adopt its own strategies for reaching out to and interacting with Nigerians. As we have repeatedly said, the Tinubu campaign will not succumb to the blackmail, intimidation and harassment of Obaigbena and his media group.
THISDAY’s attempt in the said statement to justify its false news report on the purported death of one Mueez Adegboyega Akande and the attempt to insinuate mischievously that he died in suspicious circumstances failed abysmally. Rather than apologise for this professional lapse, it resorts to tendentious rationalisations. Its futile attempt to link Asiwaju Tinubu to a drug case in the United States, even when as far back as 2003, the United States government had categorically stated that the candidate has no criminal records in that country, shows the depths of mischief the newspaper is willing to descend in its bid to bring down the APC candidate at all costs. This campaign of calumny is doomed to fail as it always has.
Our candidate is focused and will not be distracted by this diversionary tactics to throw mud at him simply because he is the obvious front runner in this race and some believe that the only way to stop him is to peddle falsehood against him.
While pretending to be a public trust, THISDAY and ARISE descend into the political arena by publishing lies in a way that does such a great disservice to journalism. Last month the paper was sanctioned by NBC over a fake report that INEC had ordered a probe of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, over the platforms’ equally fake narrative about our candidate.
Nduka Obaigbena tries to cast aspersion on the professional and personal integrity of Mr. Alake and Mr. Onanuga. They stand on a higher moral and professional pedestal than he can ever aspire to. It is astonishing that a man like Obaigbena can even pretend to be protecting public morality and the public interest. How does this media owner run his media outfits? He is notorious for not paying the salaries of his staff or fulfilling his pensions’ obligations, forcing most of the journalists in his stable to resort to the most unethical practices to survive. This model of media practice, which he exported to South Africa in 2003-2004, failed spectacularly as he had to flee that country as a result of his unethical business practices. His short-lived THISDAY left unpaid debts to staff and the printers and the South African tax office.
He exported the same irresponsible business practice to the UK where he operated his Arise TV as a registered company since 2012. In 2021, judge Raquel Agnello disqualified Obaigbena from serving as a company director in the UK for seven years; in a case brought by the official receiver of the Insolvency Office in the country.
The application for disqualification was made under Section 6 of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 and arose from the compulsory liquidation of Arise Networks Ltd of which Obaigbena was the sole director since its incorporation.
According to the judgment, the company by 2016 had garnered a total debt of £25,671,167, which included debt to trade creditors and staff, estimated at £5,850,730.
Judge Agnello found Obaigbena’s conduct as sole director of Arise TV to be unfit and that the company had continued to trade despite “complete uncertainty” about its funding.
In Nigeria, Obaigbena is notorious for owing his staff their salaries. He is also notorious for owning newsprint suppliers for years without payment. This sharp practice led to the ill-health of one of his suppliers, Afilaka, who suffered massive stroke.
While Alake and Onanuga, were known to have endangered their lives in the struggle against military dictatorship and the enthronement of the democracy we enjoy today, Obaigbena was known to have collected substantial sums of money from the military junta to campaign against the June 12, 1993 elections, widely acknowledged as the freest and fairest polls in the country’s history. He even featured on the CNN to justify the annulment of the election and the continuation of military dictatorship. Yet, this man dares to preach on public morality and the national interest. He even claims that Alake and Onanuga are envious of him! How preposterous!! What is there to be envious from a man whose business practices and personal lifestyle offend every known decency. Mr. Alake and Onanuga can never be jealous of a man uses extortion, subterfuge, and cheap blackmail as his working capital. Here is a publisher who deployed his media group in aid of the immoral and illegal presidential ambition of a sitting Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) even when this flagrantly violated and threatened the integrity of that critical institution.
It is absurd when Obaigbena uses his media outfits to push the false narrative of Tinubu’s link with narcotics in the US, when a member of his Board of Editors and Arise TV anchor, Dr. Reuben Abati, was a running mate in 2019 to the governorship candidate of the PDP in Ogun State, the late Senator Buruji Kashamu; a man who had been indicted for narcotics trafficking in the US and was a fugitive from the laws of that country until his death. The same Abati remains a card carrying member of the PDP and yet, shamelessly pontificates and postures on ARISE TV as a dispassionate analyst.
Lest it be forgotten, Abati was Media Adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan and was detained by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2015 for reportedly collecting N500 million from ex – National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki purportedly on behalf of the media.
Obaigbena himself was detained for weeks and made to refund N600 million by the EFCC, which was part of the diverted funds for arms purchase for the Nigerian military under Jonathan. Obaigbena as president of NPAN also collected millions of Naira meant as compensation for the media owners whose papers were seized by overzealous security agents during the Jonathan presidency. Many newspapers reported that they did not get the money.
It is a sad commentary on the state of the Nigerian media that a man with no moral scruples whatsoever like Obaigbena will boldly pose as a publisher who can preach morality to others.
Here is a man who has done such grave damage to media practice in Nigeria, posturing as defender of free speech.
Unless media practitioners begin to treat him like the plague and cancer he constitutes to the industry, the future of the industry will be endangered.
It is well known that many private sector corporate executives pay him huge sums of money as retainership to avoid being blackmailed by him. It is also a pity that many of the journalists who work as his employees pose as self-righteous saints who criticise others and keep mum on the unhidden moral deficits and shenanigans of their boss.
ISSUED By DELE ALAKE and BAYO Onanuga on behalf of the APC PCC Media and Communication Directorate
