Chief John Nwodo and Malam Mohammed Haruna
INFORMATION, it is said, is power. lt is so in the sense that he who has it is better informed about himself, about others, and about what to do or what others are doing. An uninformed person is like a blind man running in a cul-de-sac or a seeing man in a dark tunnel.
For the man hoisted with the job of informing others, the advantages of being informed himself are many. It’s also a tough job, in the sense that you are expected to explain to others every action of your organisation, the good and the bad, especially the bad. Explaining the bad is a lot more difficult task. If it’s a ‘bad’ government you are representing, your options in difficult times are more often than not limited; you either keep shouting or simply take some valium. If yours is a ‘good’ government, you are lucky.
Chief John Nnia Nwodo, Jr., is probably the luckiest information minister Nigeria ever had. This is simply because there is not much bellowing he needs to do. The environment in which he is working is mild, halcyon, and laid back.
In the recent past, most information ministers had found themselves holding the unsavoury portfolio of Minister for Propaganda, sticking their necks out explaining the unexplainable, courting and making enemies, and generally making a fool of themselves.
It is really the character of government that makes or unmakes a minister. If the government is rash, unlistening and insensitive to good counsel, its spokesmen will find it tough to win over sympathy from the citizenry or from the rest of the world. During the Abacha regime, public opinion was a hard nut to crack for Information Minister Walter Ofonagoro. When Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others were suddenly hanged, against all good counsel, it was Dr. Ofonagoro, among others, that did all the talking. He swam against the tide of international opinion and almost got drowned in it. At home, his struggle against the censorious private press was a no-win one. Besides, he was arguably not fully informed himself about the actions and thinking of government. Hence the grievous slips he occasionally made.
In contrast, Chief Nwodo’s job should be a smooth sail. His is a government that has made a lot of gains in the realm of public opinion at home and abroad. The release of political detainees, the revocation of the former regime’s questionable political transition programme and the unfolding of a new, credible one, the head of state’s shuttle diplomacy in Africa, Europe and America, etc., have massively toned down tension in the country. By extension, they have made the job of the regime’s spokesperson easier.
Little surprise, then, that the Nwodo that appeared on the NTA’s “Nightline Live” on Tuesday was a man looking at peace with himself, relaxed, almost paternal, exuding confidence in an office his predecessors found a hellish pyre. He didn’t have to sweat, tell a lie and carry the shit can on behalf of others. The head of state, said the minister, has not told him which political party should be favoured or how best he should conduct a propaganda blitz against anyone. The head of state shall never.
Nwodo, a lawyer and former Minister of Aviation, must have felt on top of the world recently when General Abubakar held an admirable world press conference or when he toured the West where he got hugged by Western European leaders and addressed the 53rd session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. All these would have been unthinkable in the recent age of tactless and undiplomatic propaganda.
In the past, information ministers were too busy “laundering the image” of government that they did not have to carry out their other tasks very well. Their success was not measured by how much they helped their ministry or the parastatals under it, but how they swayed public opinion to the regime. In truth, a minister should have been bothered more with the wellbeing of his ministry than with propaganda. Needless to say, the parastatals under the ministry are some of the most battered and neglected in the country.
With the absence of “information war,” Chief Nwodo is now expected to address the crying needs of his ministry and the welfare of journalists. It was heart-warming to hear him say on television that already he has begun to do that. He has ordered for the purchase of transmitters for the FRCN and is doing his best to see that the hated Media Commission is not created. Although telephone calls on the live TV programme did not allow him to comment on other areas, such as the bad shape of the print media under his ministry, one hopes that this will also be of utmost priority to him.
At the back of one’s mind is also the fact that the minister, like everyone else in the regime, does not have much time. And as he told the nation on Tuesday, it is practically impossible for him to clear the Aegean stable in his ministry by May 29, the terminal date of the government. He can only, and must, do his best.
Congrats, Mohammed Haruna
THIS is wishing Malam Mohammed Haruna godspeed on his appointment this week as the new Chief Press Secretary to the Head of State. Malam Haruna is another lucky person, in the sense that he is serving under the new information order where he does not have to “launder the image” of government, trade in untruths or appear to he doing nothing. He doesn’t have to worry about what the CNN, the BBC or The Washington Post would say about Nigeria. He does not have to develop a migraine worrying about his conscience. His hands would not be tied by unexplainable government actions. An advocate of free press and principled professionalism, he should also find his job easy.
Besides, Haruna, a media administrator and respected journalist, is competent for this job. In fact, even as the rumour of his current appointment went round for weeks, many had expected a higher portfolio for him. Now as CPS, he also doesnt have much time to prove his worth. But prove it he should.
* Published in my column, Melting Pot, in the New Nigerian Weekly today
