New Nigerian Newspapers Online Edition

For someone not schooled in the nuances of journalism – how the news is generated, processed and passed on to the public as a piece of information, for instance – the pen profession continues to hold an enduring attraction for me. For all the quackery that has so infested it, especially in our own part of the world, journalism, to me, is one of the noblest professions in terms of its capacity to improve the capacity of individuals and the society to become more civilized, informed and productive.
Writers such as Adamu Adamu, Mohammed Haruna, Idang Alibi, Is’haq Modibbo Kawu, Mahmoud Jega, etc in the Trust stable and Sam Ndah Isaiah, Dr. Kabir Mato, Ibrahim Sheme etc in the Leadership newspapers are among ‘gentlemen of the press’ I respect for the powerful voice of reason and good judgment that they represent. Like cartographers, they always lie low on the plane to draw or sketch the hill overhead, and whenever they write, their prose and diction take their readers behind the scene to depths of knowledge and information on the issues they write about.
These, and many others like them, are the bright stars in the journalism firmament; they illuminate the ecology of discourse by striving to contribute to the body of human knowledge through investigation and impassioned, verifiable presentation of the facts as they know them.
As they continue to lift journalism to the height of public acclaim, however, Adamu Adamu and co seem forever undone by a crop of overzealous and nihilistic pretenders posing as journalists; men and women who, being uncouth and uneducated, use the pen to live a profligate life by writing lies (to make money) about people who stand exonerated of the inanities associated with them.
These ‘journalists’ are today the greatest challenge that journalism in Nigeria faces; they are the problem that the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and other relevant organs must work to resolve to help register in the minds of Nigerians the true credibility and pride of place that journalism as a profession possesses.
For, without checking unscrupulous elements posing as journalists, the NUJ, NGE and the Nigeria Press Council (if there is one) would forever miss the opportunity to regulate the practice of journalism in Nigeria, and would leave open the possibility that members of the public would continue to hold Nigerian journalists with suspicion and contempt.
In northern Nigeria, the place to begin, in my opinion, is one ‘garbage’ of a newspaper called Desert Herald. As I stated earlier, I am a novice in journalism, and so I do not know what it takes to register a newspaper or to allow a publication to sell on the newsstands. For instance, does one simply become a publisher if they could afford to dish out A-3-sized, 20-page or 40-page published material in a folded form? Does one require some measure of training and licensing to work or operate as a journalist or publisher? Are there standards set by the NUJ or other journalism bodies against which journalists are gauged and by which they must abide?
These questions are very significant in the face of the recklessness and the peek-a-boo stance, with which ‘journalists’ in the Desert Herald go about their money-making.
For long, the monthly paper had ‘domesticated’ Zamfara and Yobe states as the main areas of its operation. It used to be that every edition of the newspaper would castigate, malign and lampoon the Zamfara state government and its public officials without giving them the least opportunity to present their own side of a story.
Often, stories about Zamfara State in the Desert Herald seemed crafted from some part of town in Gusau or Kaduna (what someone called bedroom journalism); the kind of rigours that genuine journalists take to verify, corroborate and check their stories against the facts appear missing in the Desert Herald in such a flagrant manner that even lay men like myself could easily spot the shenanigans, the lies, the cajoling to blackmail, warts and all.
Then all of a sudden, the tone changed. From the pulpit of hate literature dished out monthly on Zamfara State, Desert Herald descended to that of an exuberant young man who had found his love. Zamfara is now, Desert Herald style, the hub of ‘good governance’, ‘democracy dividends’ and all.
Perspective people know that such a sudden change is usually informed by more factors than meet the eye. Cultured writers and principled publications do not change their positions, chameleon-like overnight. The Mohammed Harunas and Adamu and Adamus of the world of journalism did not become what they are today by jumping on the train simply because naira notes were being handed out.
It follows that Desert Herald has lived ‘true to type’ to achieve its Zamfara metamorphosis. According to a very dependable source, its ‘publisher’ was beneficiary, very recently, of a brand new Honda CRV car and some cash as a ‘gift’ to make him climb down from his hate pulpit.
If so, it tallies closely with what the public knows about the publisher’s pedigree in Yobe State. According to sources at the Yobe finance ministry, key administration officials during the last Bukar Abba Ibrahim administration would ferry cash in their car boots to a weekend in Kaduna, where Desert Herald is printed, and to a meeting with the publisher during which they would convey the ‘felicitations’ of the government to the monthly publication. These officials reportedly did so to appease the publisher; they reckoned that all the lies he was fabricating against the Bukar Abba Ibrahim government were orchestrated to achieve blackmail and that the only way they could get him to stop the blackmail was to dole out some money.
It appears, however, that the new Mamman Ali administration, the successor to the Bukar Abba administration in the state, had either refused to compromise or is plain not bothered by the lies peddled about its activities and officials. A source close to the Yobe Finance Commisisoner, for instance, said that the Desert Herald publisher had made attempts during a recent trip to Saudi Arabia (during Umrah or lesser Hajj) to get to speak with the finance Commisisoner (who was also visiting for the lesser Hajj) through a third party ‘to strike a deal’ that would have seen the paper stop its monthly tirade against him.
But no, the commissioner said. He bluntly refused to see him, and added, for effect, that he did not know a publication with that name exists. Such was the extent to which the Desert Herald publisher could go to trade his own myopic, bizarre understanding of the news for money in the mistaken belief that everyone who he blackmailed will simply cave in.
But why is Tukur Mamu, at least in the eyes of most people in Yobe State and beyond, simply bent on destroying people’s reputations? Is it actually pecuniary, a lack of even the most rudimentary knowledge of journalism, a search for fame or an attempt to connect with some lost, tribal identity?
Although I do not claim the kind of empathy that allows me a perspective gaze at Mamu’s warped heart, my opinion, informed by what is public knowledge about him, is that a combination of a mischievous and ignorant mind, an inner tribal identity conflict and a craze to make money underpin his kind of understanding of this very noble profession of journalism; an understanding, as I said earlier, that is fundamentally at conflict with the ideals of the profession.
He is said not to possess even a certificate (not to talk of a credible diploma) in journalism. He is said to be a cashier by training who became a pamphleteer for a one-time governorship candidate in Yobe State before he set up a business center in Kaduna city. His transformation from a business center operator to a ‘publisher’ and ‘writer’ has to be one of the most unlikely professional transmutations that I know of.
Lacking the basic knowledge of what the news is, therefore, he almost immediately converted his Herald to a money spinning machine. He had found, quite correctly, that people generally care a lot about their reputation and public image and would often do whatever it takes (including giving in to blackmail) to protect that reputation. He therefore went about writing lies about almost anyone from whom he could extract some money, or for reasons that border on personal hate, tribal loyalty and sundry allegiances.
To confirm my thesis, the NUJ can do a content analysis of the Desert Herald; it can randomly choose any number of copies from the two or three years of its existence and check all the stories published against such standards as source attribution, source credibility, balance, fairness to subjects of story, right of reply, etc. The NUJ would be shocked to find that rather than being a newspaper, the Desert Herald is actually the very negation of one; it appears that it is actually some ‘tribal printed package’ in which some ethnic jingoists use an ignorant young man to achieve a chimeral relevance.
The good news is that not everyone among Mamu’s Bolewa community in Yobe State subscribe to his own way of being a tribal vanguard. This is probably why the Fika Emirate Council under His Royal Highness, Dr. Abali Ibn Mohammed Idriss stripped Mamu of an obscure traditional title it had earlier conferred on him. The royal father was said to be appalled by Tukur Mamu’s habitual pandering to prurient interests, one in which money had become an object of worship for him.
The Fika Emirate Council, which prides itself for traditional sterling attributes, was also said to have stripped Mamu of his title because council members were repulsed by Mamu’s own ‘beetle mechanic’ disposition; a trait which goes hand in hand with his ‘yellow journalism’.
But Mamu is actually troubled by the fact that among his Bolewa community, he stands like an outcast for the celebrated Ala-Tsine that his late father had heaved on him. For the record, Mamu’s late father was a special adviser in the defunct Bukar Abba Ibrahim administration which Tukur Mamu had so maligned and exploited; his death is publicly associated with heart condition he was said to have developed as a result of his inability to stop peddling lie.
The Desert Herald publisher must remember that the printed word is stored and preserved in history. The same newspaper he uses to malign and injure people’s reputation would come to be used as the standard against which to judge his humanity, even his basic sense of being a Muslim and how that judgment would impact his future and family.
In the interim, the Desert Herald, like others in its ilk, would remain the barometer that the Nigerian public would use to measure the effectiveness or lack of effectiveness of the NUJ and other organs in ensuring adherence to the principles and ethics of journalism practice.

Bomoi wrote in from Potiskum.