By Obi Nwakanma

It is quite shocking, sometimes, what blind power does to ordinary men. Well, so it is with David Umahi, a very ordinary man, who now thinks he is a god.

The tin-god governor of Ebonyi state has issued an “executive order” banning the correspondents of the Vanguard Newspaper and the Sun newspaper from any government – meaning public facilities – in Ebonyi state.

No, this is not a joke, folks. It did happen. The elected governor of Ebonyi actually made this order in a public broadcast to the people of Ebonyi state in what in short order should amount to a futile waste of air time and public resources. Mr Umahi probably thinks that what we are practising in Nigeria is a monarchy and that he is a “living god,” which is what “monarch” means; sovereign to all. He is “Amadi-Oha.”

But I’m sorry to inform him that Nigeria is a constitutional republic with a democratic system of government. He is a beneficiary of that system. There is no monarch – however, otherwise, we pretend – in a republic. The Constitution is “king” in a republic. It is the source of all authority. In a republic, all men are born free and equal. The Nigerian constitution is very unambiguous about this cardinal principle.

No Nigerian is a “subject” of either the state or anybody else. Every Nigerian is, irrespective of tribe, or tongue, or religion, or sex, a free citizen of the state-guaranteed freedom, liberty, conscience, equality, and sundry inalienable rights under the constitution. And those rights include the right to live and to pursue a legitimate life anywhere in Nigeria.

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This includes the right of the Fulani herdsman or pastoralist who wishes to settle anywhere to conduct his cattle brokerage business, for as long as he is a Nigerian; and his cattle is properly transported and penned and does not destroy or intrude into the property of other Nigerians; this includes the Igbo or Yoruba or Igala trader or Civil servant who earns their legitimate livelihood anywhere in Nigeria; and this includes the journalist, who conducts his profession as an agent of his or her legitimate medium.

They are all equally covered by the protection of the constitution. The equality clause in the Nigerian constitution is not meant to be mere decoration. It is enforceable. That means that David Umahi has as much right as the least of the people who elected him to serve them in public office.

The authority to serve does not confer absolute power on him. It confers legitimate authority on him to serve with the reserve power retained in the will of the people. The office of the Governor serves the people as much as an agent of the fourth estate – the press serves the people.

It is the constitutional duty of the press to keep an eye on Umahi, and report to the people, and inform them in order to provide the necessary check, should Umahi begin to act like a power-crazed divinity. The office of the Governor is no more important than the office of the Correspondent of a newspaper house. They just have different roles. But absolute power has a way of driving men crazy and unbalanced.

Extreme power is sometimes a drug of choice for many. It is as much an aphrodisiac as it is narcotic – with the effect of one of those psychedelic drugs like crack, that gives one a badass rush, and you begin to hallucinate about your true place in the world. I think Mr Umahi might be in a power funk. As a result, he has very little idea the chunk of very dried meat he is about to chew with his decision to wage a war with the press.

He won’t be the first to take on the Press, nor will he be the last. But once reality, as it does all the time, dawns on him, he might learn a very important lesson, which is that tin-gods are like props that fall apart once the show is over, and the curtains fall. He will feel the bruises long after the midnight of his regime if he begins a war with the press. I do not know who advises him, or whether he listens to advise at all but to declare that he has “Koboko” over the “Pen” is bad politics.

It is the declaration of an ignoramus. One should never have thought this of the Governor of Ebonyi state. The Nigerian press has fought gnomes and Dewilds of fiercer pedigree, and have done so, long before Umahi was even an idea in his parents’ mind. The press fought an imperial power with the vastest arsenal of power in the world for the freedom Umahi now enjoys and wishes to abuse and kick under the bus.

The press fought a military dictatorship in Nigeria until it whimpered away with tails between its legs out of power. Umahi is an ungrateful beneficiary of the battles fought by journalists to restore the democratic rights Umahi now enjoys but which he now seems to misuse. The press is not his enemy, but a partner, if his intentions are pure and true, and if his true commitments are to public service.

The press becomes his enemy only when he has something to hide because the cardinal raison d’etre of newspapers is to put everything to the healing and unobtrusive glare of sunlight. And there is nothing Umahi can do about this. This brings me therefore to his threat to the reporters of the Vanguard and the Sun newspapers.

As I understand it, his grouse is that they were putting Ebonyi in a bad light? Nigerian newspapers, particularly Vanguard reporters were not put on this lovely earth, nor have I heard Uncle Sam say he established the Vanguard to put Ebonyi in good light. Reporters are engaged to report the news; to paint the situation on the ground as objectively as possible to the public and with hard evidence.

If Umahi ever felt that these reporters were inaccurate, he has the resources of the state to (a) publish an annual, quarterly, monthly, or even weekly report and circulate to the public and countermand wrong press reports using the professionals employed in the Ebonyi State Ministry of Information; (b) he has the right of response by offering rejoinders and clarifications, and even seeking the leave of the court to sue any newspaper for sedition.

The press laws cover every ground for seeking remedies for his grouse. To resort to the kidnap of a journalist and the threat to basically kill journalists because “their safety is no longer guaranteed in Ebonyi” is the height of absurdity and lawlessness unbecoming of an elected public official! It is an extremely irresponsible declaration of intentions. Now, journalists must protect themselves.

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It is about time to blacklist these characters who think they own journalists or do them favours by granting them offices in the Governors or Presidential lodges. The press can, and should report the streets of Ebonyi, but ignore the government House. They can develop contacts in all the public establishments, create side leaks; and demonstrate to the likes of Umahi that they do not have to drive around in government corteges in order to do their work.

I have always said that reporters have no business in the states congregating in the Press offices of Government lodges. They need to cultivate their sources in every aspect of government. They do not need press releases or government handouts. It is clear that the Vanguard and Sun reporters whom Umahi has barred from government establishments seem to be independent-minded professionals who clearly are not dancing to the will of the tin-god of Ebonyi, and the crass desire to “get good press.”

The press is called “the fourth estate” for a reason. A free press is the very anchor of democratic governance. I should repeat this: the same constitution that established the office of the governor equally established the function of the press. The governor, therefore, has no rights, or powers from stopping the news media, any reporter at all from doing his work in Ebonyi state.

It is not up to him. Public facilities belong to taxpayers. Any reporter who lives and pays his tax in Ebonyi is “from Ebonyi.” They are equal stakeholders and cannot be intimidated by this “state of origin” farce. Because they pay their tax in Ebonyi, live in Ebonyi, conduct their professional life in Ebonyi, vote in Ebonyi, both these reporters, satisfying the residency clause, can legitimately also seek to contest elections and be voted into any public office in Ebonyi, irrespective of where they were originally born in Nigeria.

That makes them citizens and residents of Ebonyi. It is therefore farcical for the governor to declare that these reporters are not “even from Ebonyi.” It is this same governor who has issued an “order” to Local government Chairmen to administer flogging on anybody found flouting the order to quarantine in Ebonyi. It is important for citizens to obey legitimate public ordinances publicly issued particularly in these times.

Public safety ordinances are orders of parliament which the executive enforces. Any citizen found flouting routine public health emergency regulations ought to be arrested, put in a special quarantine, observed for infection, treated with dignity, and at the end of the quarantine period brought before a magistrate to face the law he broke. Only a proper court under a Magistrate can administer punishments.

For the governor of Ebonyi to “order” the flogging of citizens as “minimal” enforcement measures make him unworthy of the office he occupies and unfit for public service. Because he does not understand his role and place in the constitution. It is because of these kinds of ignoramus governance that Nigeria, and particularly the South East of Nigeria feels like it is behind the dark curtain.

It is right and proper that the Guild of Editors and the NUJ has put Umahi on notice: they should hold him responsible for any untoward thing that happens to any journalist in Ebonyi state.

In fact, the Vanguard and the Sun must sue Umahi for the kidnaping, trauma, and violation, suffered by their reporters in the hands of public officials under the instruction of the Ebonyi state governor and seek immediate compensation from the courts, as well as immediately petition the Ebonyi House of Assembly to investigate the governor for abuse of office and privilege.

Vanguard