THE MANY SINS OF A TRANSGRESSOR
By
Paul Mamza
March 22, 2005
It seems majority of Nigerians have gone through the school of mischief and had in the process learnt and imbibed good lessons of sortie which hampers any positive change along the path of reformation. When issues are discussed as intellectual discourse to rescue the nation from the clutches of injustice, despair and irrationality, the citizenry often look at the trivialities rather than the core-message(s). And by this, end up trivialising the very matter of discourse within the limited prism of sectional, communal and invested interests. When I wrote IBB and "His Secret Agents" which was only pasted on Gamji.com and Amanaonline.com (being Gamji and Amanaonline writer) about six national newspapers and magazines such as Thisday, Daily Trust etc carried the piece as an advertorial even without my consent. I did not complain then, because the content of the article was not altered, though I remain at loss up to this moment as to the intentions or the motives of the sponsor(s). The victim of the response, was then the commissioner of Information in Adamawa State. Now His Royal Highness, the Hama Bachama Chief Asaph Zadok, a friend and a fine gentleman I had had good relationship with at the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) commended my past efforts and agreed with a substantial part of my article. But in the same breath wondered in his piece published in Saturday Sun how a lecturer could sponsor such serial advertorials in national dailies just to air a view. He was right; At least from the realities of our times but he unjustifiably labeled me as an IBB jobber and a Buhari Apologist. I had cause to respond in my article "Buhari versus IBB: Nobody lied" published in the Sunday Sun that I am neither an IBB jobber nor am I anybody’s apologist and the matter died at just that. The mysteries behind the former intentions became demystified, at least the intersections within the dogged manifestations. This methodological demiurge had underlying prop-ups when viewed from the very concept of formulating determinism.
I share recognition, I cherish competition of ideas and the controversy of opinions. But I do not subscribe to fetishism of rationalisations and its unintended results. I hate creating a pseudo-objective conception as an optative political culture and its debilitating traps. It is my article entitled IBB: Between Nuhu Ribadu and Femi Fani-Kayode that aroused my legitimate fears and the ambiguous charisma of the sponsor(s). The said article was not submitted to any paper for publication, except The Leadership (which i write for), but Daily Trust of 17th March, 2005, carried it as an advertorial on its page 10 without my name, with two E-mail addresses of mine (very outrageous!) and the entire framework of the article altered like punctuations which are indiscriminately used and certain aspects unnecessarily emphasized. Even though the same article was published in my column (In Leadership) on 14th March, 2005. When I contacted Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah, the Editor-in-chief of Leadership Newspaper to alert him, he gave me the telephone number of Mr. Ishaq Modibbo Kawu, the Editor of Daily Trust. After exchanging pleasantries, I tried to enquire from him the source but Mr. Kawu claimed that he had been sick and would check the commercial department to verify and notify me accordingly. That was Thursday, 17th March, 2005. As at the time of writing this article there was not response from the Editor. I had great respect for the Daily Trust Newspaper having been one of the early contributions to its columns and more so, one of the serious Newspapers in the North. Even without response from the Editor one can visualise the bad taste of the intent and its unmitigated deciphelism of facelessness may be tailored to serve a pathetic attempt and its debilitating uses-I did not mean so, I am only exploring the possibilities of political responsibility and its attendant choices. Such is the enlightenment that became part of me long before the imaginative projection. The late Sardauna, Sir, Ahmadu Bello christened it in his way as "The Greatest weapon is the truth".
I put mine as "universal truth has no bounds and clear justice has no barriers". A writer or philosopher should be able to look beneath intrinsic alternatives and at the same time look above narrative potentialities. Time is not fixed, so is the unsettling dynamism of knowledge and viewpoints. A systematic expectation provide canons of critical judgement which only when we pose questions that we provide answers to the questions asked. I have never had a soft centre for any wrongdoer or vitiated institutions or whatever they represent. Similarly, I hate instrumentalities of motivated provocations and organs of pre-meditated curious retreat.
If at all, we as citizenry wants the nation to move forward we should promote the culture of transparency and discipline, especially in media conduct, only then, can we challenge the leadership of bad conduct. Let not the winching desires of some faceless individuals subvert our collective cause to pursue a principled discourse on national issues. It is in this light that I am tempted to reveal to the public the many sins of a transgressor who uses my article any time as advertorial without my knowledge. Let us try to do the right thing next time, please.
Mamza writes from A.B.U. Zaria.