40 years of punditry

The month of August is typically filled with celebrations in my household – a wedding anniversary and two birthdays; but this year, there’s an additional reason for a drink. It is the 40th anniversary of my debut as an opinion writer. It was in August 1984 that my first opinion piece appeared on the op-ed page of The Guardian newspaper – beginning what has turned out to be a lifelong passion. Titled ‘’The way we are’’, the piece was a piercing review of the insincerity within the Muhammadu Buhari military government.

The Nigerian Prisons Service had taken out several pages in newspapers to advertise for tender for the supply of firewood to prisons across the country, essentially undermining a national campaign against deforestation, launched earlier in the year by the same government, to check desertification in the north and erosion in the south. In my young mind (I was only 23, going to my final undergrad year), I could sense internal conflict within the government that had prided itself as a no-nonsense disciplinarian out to correct the ills of society.

How could a government launch and fund such a massive campaign, asking citizens to plant trees and protect the environment, and at the same time, a department in the same government is seeking contractors to supply firewood to be used for cooking food for millions of prisoners? From where would the firewood come? The article, I understood, caused some dismay within the Buhari/Idiagbon government and triggered a search for alternative cooking fuels in the prisons.

Since that first outing, I have been writing regularly, virtually on every subject under the sun – apart from religion – asking questions, criticising, analysing, proffering solutions and taking leaders to task. I have found no other art more innervating than writing. It is, indeed, one of God’s noblest gifts to humanity and it has given me a voice to refine my ideas and reach out to the world.

A lot has happened since then. The ownership, composition and structure of the media have changed considerably, just as the character of the newsroom and the production processes of news have also been transformed. However the most fundamental change was wrought by the internet and the subsequent births of social media and online publications.

The media now includes a wide range of electronic platforms, while journalism has a new variant known as ‘’citizen journalism’’, which is practised by anybody with a handheld device. As a citizen journalist, you don’t have to possess formal or on-the-job training on the rudiments of journalism before you create a sensation. This variant has done a great disservice to the profession because it has little or no regard for ethics and standards.

Social media has also diminished kingdoms and dethroned emperors. When I wrote my first piece, the publisher was worshipped as an emperor and the editor was venerated as a king. That era is long gone. The influential person is no longer a publisher or the editor with a daily print run of 400,000 copies. We now have young social media ‘influencers’ with over five million followers on Instagram or TikTok. Brands flock to them for endorsements, while newspapers scrounge for obituaries to survive.

Writers and readers now have bigger access to national platforms. When I debuted, it was hard for the editorial page editor to accept your work for publication. The copy had to be typed double-spaced and posted (or hand-delivered) to the newspaper, and addressed to the editor. I posted mine at the Uyo post office. Hundreds of such mails were received daily and you would be both lucky and outstandingly good to be chosen for publication. Today, there are many online publications to write for and any piece, whether good, sensational or simply fake, could go ‘viral’, reaching millions of readers. The tyranny of the publisher and his editor has been broken!

With the growth of social media, a new ‘industry’ has emerged within the media: the production and distribution of unsubstantiated information. Whether it is disinformation, misinformation, malinformation or fake news, these materials are created and deliberately spread by competitors, divorced spouses, jilted lovers, aggrieved former employees or other persons to damage the reputation of certain persons, and brands or destroy businesses.

Even the dead are not spared! Fake news makes truth hard to find and could also be one of the leading sources of danger to personal security and health. The ongoing violent riots in the UK were caused by the spread of fake news! Thankfully, the traditional media and some reputable online publications have remained impenetrable to fake news; and so, they are important sources of news and information to the few that control the most.

Forty years ago, columnists, opinion writers and pundits were fewer in number, but more influential than they are today. The military generals in power then, ever so eager to gain legitimacy, were attentive to what the pundits wrote. They read everything, and sometimes, responded harshly. But these days, I wonder whether our ‘democrats’ even read newspapers.

While the military administrators were scared of negative public perception that could trigger a revolt within and outside the barracks, today’s ‘democrats’ are not bothered by our opinions because they do not owe their legitimacy to public acceptance. Many of them did not even get into office through a legitimate electoral process, and so the people’s voice doesn’t matter.

Reflecting on the essence of my maiden article, I marvel at how unchanged the character of the Nigerian government has been these past 40 years. It is still full of duplicity, hypocrisy and deceit. Officials inflict hardship on the people; ask them to tighten their belts and make sacrifices, while they revel in opulence and luxury, living large on the treasury. The way we are!