Trump comes to Ondo

Let me hasten to clarify. United States President Donald Trump is by no means on record as even remotely contemplating a visit to Nigeria, and far less so to Ondo State. The continent of Africa, whose countries he once labelled ‘shitholes’ as revealed by his own country’s media, is evidently off the plate – at least, as yet – on the American leader’s diplomatic agenda. Pertaining to the headline, therefore, it is Trump’s peculiar touch in U.S. leadership that has found veridical expression in the southwest Nigerian state.

Over the years, the global community has looked to the U.S. as the leader of the Free World and a redoubtable fortress of human and civil rights as well as insular justice. This is so much so that the country has held out a model often adopted uncritically by us in Nigeria as the global best standard. But the recent nationhood experience of that country under Mr. Trump posed a completely different paradigm: one as could make despotic pretenders to civil rulership in backwater democracies of the world feel considerably saintly. In other words, America now seems to signpost the worst tyrannical tendencies.

Following the brutal murder early October of Saudi journalist and U.S. resident, Jamal Khashoggi, in the Saudi consulate in Turkey, for instance, the American president dug in on preserving friendly relations with the Saudi leadership, notably Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at whose suspected instance Khashoggi was hacked down. It has not seemed to matter that this is against the run of dominant world sentiment and at the cost of abetting suspected complicity in a vicious rights abuse.

When the Nigerian military recently warned darkly that they were out of rubber bullets, with the sanguine implication that they could routinely deploy lethal arms against Shi’ites who were at the time protesting in Abuja the continuing detention of their leader, El-Zakzaky, they posted on their media site a video of Mr. Trump saying American forces could use live ammunition against stone-throwing caravan of Central American immigrants heading towards the U.S. border. Although the military soon after pulled down the video, which they explained was inadvertently posted, the message apparently implied was that there was a glowing precedent of their iron-fisted threat in the celebrated fort of liberty.

But very little else stands the Trump era out as its hostile disposition towards the media. Under the present administration, the American media, which ordinarily are essential to the country’s liberal heritage, have been tagged ‘enemies of the people.’

Only last month, the White House pulled the press accreditation of CNN correspondent, Jim Acosta, after a spat he had with the president at a news conference that tailed the American midterms. The decision to yank Acosta’s ‘hard pass’ – an accreditation that allows journalists easy access to the White House and other presidential events – was described by the New York Times as “a nuclear-level response by the president and (his) communications staff after more than two years of escalating tensions” between the cable network and the administration. Acosta had learnt of the withdrawal of his accreditation after the news conference face-off with Trump on 7th November when he walked up to the northwest gate of the White House later in the day for a usual live shot and was requested by the Security Service to turn in his ‘hard pass.’

Both the journalist and CNN then approached the U.S. District Court in Washington, citing violation of their First Amendment rights of freedom of the press and Fifth Amendment right to due process. The Acosta saga as well inspired a rare show of unity among the American media, with organisations like the Associated Press, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, USA Today, New York Times, Politico, Press Freedom Defense Fund and NBC News backing the CNN suit. Even Trump’s favourite media ally, Fox News, pitched in on the side of Acosta and CNN.

After the District Court judge, in an interim verdict, ordered that Acosta’s badge be restored pending further hearing in the case, the White House backed off the lawsuit and rolled out new rules for journalists’ conduct at its news conferences. And the CNN as well pulled its suit, saying it was no longer necessary after Acosta’s ‘hard pass’ was restored.

Good thing that the American media were able to bat off Mr. Trump’s sleigh of hand in the Acosta affair. Now we see the American leader’s example inspiring leaders in our own clime and, sadly, it is highly unlikely the same capacity for rebuff inheres the Nigerian media.

Ondo State Governor Rotimi Akeredolu is reported to have recently withdrawn the accreditation of some media organisations covering his administration’s activities and sent their correspondents packing from the Government House in Akure. According to a report by reputable watchdog, Media Rights Agenda (MRA), Arakunrin Akeredolu, as he has fondly appelated himself, has also forbidden the outfits from covering his activities, having allegedly been angered by perceived negative coverage they had given him hitherto. The affected media houses were listed as Channels Television, African Independent Television (AIT), Raypower FM and Core Television.

MRA, in its November newsletter, reported that following the disaccreditation, correspondents of the affected outfits were directed to hand in all government items in their possession, including the state house media identity cards issued them through the office of the chief press secretary to the governor. They were also said to have been barred from further accessing the facilities at Alagbaka ‘press crew’ office of the governor in the state capital.

The Trumpian factor is perhaps best illustrated by the suspected reason the correspondents were shown the door. MRA cited an unnamed source as alleging that journalists with the affected media were accused of reporting the activities of the government in “bad light” while ignoring developmental stories that could attract investors to the state. “The main grouse the government has with these affected media stations is their critical reportage of (its) activities,” the source was quoted saying. Another source was also reported alleging that the media stations were let off because the state government could no longer afford purported retainership on them as was inherited from the past administration. But even then, it came down to the perceived slant of their stories: “Despite such payments…these media stations don’t still report us well and in good light. We feel we can’t continue to retain them and we have told them we no longer need their services in the Government House,” the source was reported saying. It was as well reported that coverage of the activities of the government since early 2018 had been restricted to select media stations, mostly state-owned outlets.

Akeredolu is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), and must be well versed in the constitutional right of news media to freely operate wherever, including at a chronically public institution as the state house. Shutting out marked outfits for whatever reason seems so revisionist that it should be legally challenged – not only by the affected media houses, but also by a concert of media organisations and allied organs as a matter of class interest. But, of course, there is the alleged mercantilist factor of retainership. If this truly applies, the media houses then need to reality-check if it is worth the resources they invest to unfetteredly report on the state administration without retainership – the whole point I am making is that Mr. Governor can’t stop them doing this – or if it is a cold button that they would rather forego for more viable operations.

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