In 2012 or 2013, I had an experience similar to that of the journalist Alex Otti publicly put down. Mine was neither public nor withering. It did not trend. But it provoked outrage, of the personal kind. It equally offered a revealing glimpse into how some political office holders view journalists and the work we do.
I was interviewing Rauf Aregbesola, who was persuaded that he was a once-in-an-age statesman, reformer and financial engineering maestro. His responses to questions about his policies, including the school mergers and the grand redesign, were generously sprinkled with the phrase “financial engineering.”
That phrase appeared as frequently as the cultural exclamation “fah,” for which Ilorin people are known. I did not believe he was financially engineering anything. He was talking tosh. Before long, the claim collapsed under reality i when his government began paying “ilaji” (half) salaries, to civil servants. That is if it did not become “ilarin” (quarter) salaries because deductions were made before payment. Civil servants moaned and groaned.
But that was not what triggered the tension.
Toward the end of the interview, I raised a concern voiced by the opposition about his frequent foreign trips in search of investors. I asked, “The opposition has been very critical of your foreign trips in search of foreign investors. Can you, in specific terms, explain what these trips have brought to the state?”
I did not consider the question offensive. I assumed I was offering him an opportunity to justify the spending on those trips and silence his critics. He did not see it that way. He reacted as though I were an adversary. That was strange. TheNEWS had contributed to how he became governor and my Editor-in-Chief, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, was friends with him and had actually given me a personal message to deliver to him. In any case, to have been adversarial would have amounted to spitting at proprietorial interests.
Aregbesola went off like a grenade, his wispy body shaking like a drilling machine. “You cannot judge me by their cynical standards,” he said. I have quoted him verbatim.
I was astonished. I explained that I was not judging him but giving him an opportunity to rebut the opposition’s claims. He became almost incoherent with rage. Over what? Most likely because the trips were mere junkets. They produced nothing. I kept trying to tease out a concrete answer. He refused. He told me to go and write whatever I wanted. The interview ended there.
Back in Lagos, I had someone transcribe the interview. On the day the edition carrying it was published, he saw it before my Editor-in-Chief did. That same day, both men met at the Bourdillon home of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. Aregbesola complained that I did not excise the portion where he said I could go and write whatever I wanted. He said it made him look bad.
He was not bad. He was awful. As events unfolded over time, he grew grotesque in public office.
When Mr. Onanuga returned to the office, he called me to say “Symbol,” the plainclothes clown’s nickname, had complained that I should have removed that portion. I replied that I had no such agreement with him and that even if he had requested it, I would not have honoured it. Oga told me to forget about him.
I did not forget. I hated him from that day. I do not pretend otherwise. He overrates himself. He likely imagines that he was present when the world was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. That is the kind of man he is.
On another occasion, I interviewed him at Bourdillon in the company of Adegbamigbe Ademola. Again, he was offensive, if not obnoxious. Even the placid Adegbamigbe fumed silently. His face showed it. Aregbesola appeared to think he was teaching English while answering a question about Opon Imo, that rubbish device on which government funds were wasted.
Every statement he made carried the word “angst,” and he assumed we were too dim to know it. Each time, he spelt it out for us: a n g s t. In the same interview, he pronounced “gadget,” in reference to Opon Imo, exactly as it is spelt. Gad get, not gajet. A linguistically incompetent chancer attempting to teach us English. It was an insult to Adegbamigbe, a graduate of English and Literary Studies and a highly competent user of the language. It was not an insult to me. I am an agbero by constitution. Aregbesola’s conduct was a performance of assumed superiority, not an intellectual one.
Back to Otti. His public insult of a journalist is troubling. It is not about hurt feelings. It is about temperament. The journalist’s question was harmless, even if wooly. To respond by calling him stupid and irresponsible was to announce an imperial disposition. I doubt the governor would have been angry if the guy had adopted the sycophantic “Your Excellency, how have you been able to completely transform the state despite paucity of funds?”
Governors are not monarchs. They are elected officials sustained by public funds and deserve to be scrutinised. When a governor treats a question as an affront and a journalist as a nuisance, he is not merely displaying irritation. He is advertising intolerance. Even if the journalist was from an opposition platform, as many are suggesting, Otti should have taken that up with his aides, who failed to comply with their boss’ preference for only sweetheart questions.
I do not want to guess what the experience of Otti’s personal staff and appointees is like. But one can infer.
If a governor can publicly belittle a journalist for asking a mild question, what happens behind closed doors? What is the atmosphere in the inner chambers? Power does not mutate in private into gentleness when it is abrasive in public. It is usually the other way round. Public rebuke is often the diluted version.
Personal staff in such environments learn quickly. They edit themselves before speaking. They preface statements with praise. They anticipate irritation and design their memos to avoid it. They become curators of mood rather than conveyors of truth. An appointee who knows that his principal has no patience for discomfort will either manufacture agreeable briefings or risk humiliation. Over time, competence retreats and compliance advances.
There is also the contagion effect. When the head demonstrates disdain for scrutiny, subordinates imitate it. Commissioners snap at civil servants. Special advisers bark at junior aides. The chain of command becomes a chain of intimidation.
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