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By: Inuwa Bwala
Posers: Could Zulums son who spoke from Maiduguri, be in an Indian prison at the same time?
☆What is the name of the victim and when specifically did it happen?
☆ Which Indian official confirmed the incident and the arrest?
If I remember very well, it was the late Chief M K O Abiola, who once said, that, “One can not shave a man’s head in his absence.”
This is perhaps what Nairaland, a third rate online publication and it’s sponsors attempted to do by publishing that report, about the son of Borno state Governor, Professor Babagana Umara Zulum having been arrested and detained over the murder of a nameless Chinese national in far away India.
Coming at a time when the said son is right here in Nigeria: Maiduguri in particular, and has not traveled out of Nigeria in the last three months, surmise Chief Abiola’s anecdote.
So many people; including the protagonist of the said report, have reacted to what was obviously a piece of mischief, which has tended to glorify the medium: that seems to be desperately seeking recognition.
My initial instinct was to also react when it first appeared, but I later dismissed it, knowing that it was just a mendacious esoteric narrative, intended to harm the Governor and not his son.
People on ground who are conversant with the Zulums and who interact with the children daily have called to tell me that, allowing the matter to linger: however trivial could make it assume a life of it’s own.
I have therefore decided to interrogate the salient likely issues underlying the said report, which sponsors may be secretly rejoicing over, as having unsettled the governor.
From professional judgment, the report was not only poorly scripted but lacks the basic tenets of good journalism: having failed to meet the rudimentary inputs of ordinary reportage.
In particular, it failed to name both the alleged murderer and the victim. It failed to specifically name, which town in India, did the incident happen: no date was mentioned of the incident having taken place, no attribution from witnesses to the incident, and no confirming authority about the incident or the arrest, neither was there any reference to how the father made the Said diplomatic overture.
The said report further lies flat, with the video denial by the assumed culprit, speaking from Maiduguri and not in captivity in India.
From the political view point: it is an incontrovertible fact, that, Professor Babagana Umar Zulum has earned universal acclaim for his outstanding leadership qualities and is fast becoming a reference point in leadership lessons.
It is, however, a sad truism that, much as he has endeared himself to the world, it is not everybody that is happy with Zulums’ rising fame.
His attainments seem to have lent him to envy and secret disdain.
Those who fear what he might become in the future have secretly formed a guild syndicalist group working towards undoing Governor Zulum, politically. Seeing him as a lacking political exposure, enough to survive their antics, but who is coming to outshine them have often given them jitters.
The said publication did not therefore, stem from a vacuum, but from the agenda of the group, which may yet be faceless but determined to rubbish him.
Against this background, one could clearly see that recruiting willing canonfodders in the media becomes necessary.
Now, with the trouble the publication seem to have landed itself into, they may have realized rather belatedly, that, those who wrote the script and gave it to them for publication were most uncharitable.
It may not be so easy tracing the office location of Nairaland: as it may be just another briefcase blog, in the event that they fail to retract the damaging report as demanded by the Governor’s media managers, but it should go down on records, that, those who choose journalism as the easiet tool for Political vendetta are doing the greatest damage to our democracy and to a once noble profession.
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