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Obaigbena takes on Tinubu: You’re running from your shadows *You must come clean to Nigerians *Read full statement
Bola Ahmed Tinubu, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), must present himself for scrutiny before Nigerians if he wants to be President in 2023, as is the standard all over the civilised world, Nduka Obaigbena, Publisher of THISDAY-ARISE Television, has declared.
The Nigerian media guru, in a quick riposte on Tuesday, was replying to multiple allegations of misconduct levied against him by the duos of Bayo Onanuga and Dele Aleke, presently anchoring the media campaigns of the former Governor of Lagos State, in what indicates a no let off in the altercation between the two camps in the last one week.
The back and forth engagement, saw to the media conglomerate in a joint statement, published on the front page of THISDAY on Monday, assailing Onanuga and Alake, of trying to gag the press by an earlier taking them on for persistently inviting Tinubu to their programmes ahead of the February presidential election.
The two veteran journalists however fired back and not only accused the newspaper and television stations of misconduct, but went for the jugular of Obaigbena as rubbing off on them his corrupt and unacceptable standard professional practice.
However Obaigbena, in a detailed statement, signed by his Chief of Staff, Fauziya Mohammed, came out forcefully against Onanuga, the Director of Media and Publicity, Bayo Onanuga, while Aleke, Director, Strategic Communication, accusing them of adopting the styles of Nazi Party’s chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels, or the incorrigible Iraqi Ali Hassan al-Majeed, otherwise known as Chemical Ali, in their attempt to browbeat the media and confuse the issues.
The media chief also took time to clarify the allegation made against him, including the alleged betrayal of the late Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO), Abiola, winner of the controversial June 12, 1993 presidential election, one of the most prominent political sagas in Nigeria that saw the multi-billionaire dying confinement, after a month of the mysterious death of the late military despot, Sani Abacha, who detained him.
Read the full statement, entitled: LIES HAVE SHORT LEGS, THEY DO NOT RUN FAR. The Fake News from Bayo Onanuga and Dele Alake:
We read with dismay Messrs Dele Alake and Bayo Onanuga’s continued vehement personal attacks, supposedly on behalf of the APC PCC Media Communication Directorate (many APC PCC
members have called us to dissociate themselves), on the Chairman/Editor-in-Chief THISDAY & ARISE News Channel, Nduka Obaigbena, and his media group.
Every day the media calls on public officials and those who seek public office to account. Since the media is a public trust, we will respond to the duo’s allegations in a comprehensive manner, even if we are not bound to so do, as we do not seek public office. But we believe we owe it a duty to our audiences who may have read the lies and fake News reminiscent of the Nazi Party’s chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels, or the incorrigible Iraqi Ali Hassan al-Majeed, otherwise known as Chemical Ali, who was still propagating his country’s successes in the 1990 Gulf War long after the allied forces had taken over the capital, Baghdad.
WE CATEGORISE THE LIES AND FAKE News
INTO FOUR:
K.O. Abiola and June 12:
When the late Chief M.K.O Abiola was the flag bearer of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) for the 1993 presidential election, Obaigbena was a senatorial candidate on the platform of the National Republication Convention (NRC). And Abiola supported SDP’s Candidate, the late Chris Okolie, leading to a strain in their relationship. Obaigbena was also Special Adviser to the NRC National Chairman Tom Ikimi in 1991, and later Hameed Kusamotu. Before and after the annulment of the 1993 presidential election, Abiola and Obaigbena were friends and remained friends till the end.
Abiola was broad-minded enough to understand that Obaigbena, like his other friends in NRC, were competitors for power. But that competition ended when Abacha took power and all true democrats moved against military rule. Indeed, Abiola’s last
public appearance was an Obaigbena event at the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) on June 8,1994 where he took the Abacha government to the cleaners while demanding his mandate.
After his speech against the Abacha junta, he went underground only to reappear in Epetedo, Lagos Island, on June 12,1994 to declare himself president. The rest, as they say, is history.
Some weeks before the Epetedo Declaration on May 9,1994, Abiola and Obaigbena had met on a South African flight from London to Johannesburg for Nelson Mandela’s presidential inauguration.
Obaigbena sat on one side of an aisle seat, while Abiola sat on the other side of that aisle seat with his wife Kudirat taking the window seat next to him.
On the Abiola delegation was the late Chief Ralph Uwechue, and Cameron Daodu, the Ghanaian-born London Observer journalist and writer. Abiola and Obaigbena spoke throughout the 12-hour flight on the events leading to June 12 and thereafter made
peace. Abiola reminded Obaigbena that he had driven all the way from Ilorin to Lagos City Hall to attend his wedding in 1987. I then invited him to my event of June 8,1994. As we arrived Johannesburg International Airport as guests of the Mandelas,
Obaigbena was witness to his claim of being the elected Nigerian President and his delegation was driven of in official motorcade while Obaigbena made his way to the Carlton Hotel, downtown Johannesburg (the same hotel most invited guests lodged), and later bussed to Union Building in Pretoria, venue of the inauguration where he ran into Dele Olojede who was covering the event for a New York newspaper.
Military leader at the time, Gen. Sani Abacha soon arrived; on his delegation were then foreign minister Babagana Kingibe, Naval Chief Allison Madueke, former president Shehu Shagari and ex-Head of State Yakubu Gowon. Abiola sat in studied silence and was like everybody inspired and driven by the Mandela moment in the sun. In the evening, Abiola did not attend the banquet; he left for London and then returned to Nigeria and to Owo for consultations.
Shortly after, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) was formed in Lagos.
The next morning, I attended the meeting on the sideline with Mandela associates, who said they wished Abiola had not left;
they wanted our assistance in setting up a newspaper as the South African media was controlled by the white minority. Although I promised to help, that opportunity did not come until 2003 when we started THISDAY South Africa which soon became easily one
of the best newspapers in the country, by every ranking. However, the establishment did not like it that a Nigerian–owned
newspaper was shaping public opinion. A South African special security official once invited me to play golf and told me pointedly that they couldn’t have a Nigerian newspaper Reporter at the (Union Buildings) State House.
Despite the support of Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, who had become president then, the establishment insisted on South African ownership for THISDAY Newspapers.
Shortly after that request, bank credit lines were frozen in South African banks despite presenting a US$5 million Citibank guarantee from GTBank.
The banks simply refused to grant credit to the newspaper. After a few crisis meetings with South African investors and with Newspapers, and our refusal to cede editorial control in any co-ownership from the bigger South African media companies, we closed our SA operations after some $30 million USD investment over two years.
At ARISE News Channel and THISDAY we believe the narratives around Africa and Africans and the black race can only change when we have strong global voices. We have used our “sorrow,
blood and tears” (apologies Fela) to pioneer this process in South Africa, Europe and the USA. It can only get better. Aljazeera has done it for the Arab world; we too can.
Even at home, back in Nigeria, we are being misrepresented and libelled by some envious peers.
Contrary to the wild claims of Alake and Onanuga, we did not owe any tax authorities in South Africa; we also paid all our creditors in an organised exit strategy.
If they have any such evidence to the contrary, they should publish it immediately. Indeed, our debacle in South Africa is one of the factors that persuaded the patriotic President Olusegun Obasanjo administration to cancel the South African Airways takeover of Nigeria Airways, given that Nigerian businesses were being
discriminated against in that country.
2) ARISE Networks Limited (ANL) UK:
Nduka Obaigbena’s disqualification as a Director is still a subject of litigation in the UK Court of Appeals and we wouldn’t want to make further comments on matters before the Appeals Court. It is sufficient to point out, however, that due to the foreign exchange
shortage from Nigeria, ARISE Networks Ltd (ANL), one of our UK operating companies supplying personnel to the network, couldn’t meet creditor payments for some months, as at when due. The judge was of the considered opinion that ANL should have shut down its business in the UK instead of trading when there was no clarity as to when the FX situation would improve in Nigeria. The Judgement made it clear that there was Prince Nduka Obaigbena presenting a framed first copy of THISDAY South Africa to Nelson Mandela Presenting first copy to President Thabo Mbeki. The Judgement made it clear that there was Prince Nduka Obaigbena presenting a framed first copy of THISDAY South Africa to Nelson Mandela Presenting first copy to President Thabo Mbeki no evidence of any dishonesty against Obaigbena.
Since those initial teething difficulties, other ARISE entities have traded out of the shortages and ARISE News Channel is now thriving in the UK, Europe, the USA, Middle East and 54 countries of Africa. We await the judgement of the Appellate Courts on ANL
as to why and if we ought to have known that the FX shortages in Nigeria would not improve to continue trading.
3) EFCC and NPAN Refund:
That the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) invited Obaigbena and Executives of other national newspapers to clarify payments made to the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN). Obaigbena as NPAN president at the time
was invited, just as the executives of all newspapers involved (The Nation owned by Bola Tinubu inclusive), to clarify the payments received. He was not detained as he signed no bail bond, and indeed has never been detained by the EFCC or the Police in any criminal case, contrary to the fake News of Bayo Onanuga and Dele Alake.
What were the facts of the EFCC invitation? For about two weeks security agents carried out raids of circulation vehicles of media houses, in the guise of searching for arms, disrupting their operations, resulting in losses of millions of naira in advert and
newspaper sales. The Nation newspaper (owned by Bola Ahmed Tinubu) was perhaps the most affected, a situation they interpreted as being targeted as an opposition newspaper. The NPAN called a meeting of media owners and other stakeholders and decided to challenge the Jonathan government in a class action in court. President Goodluck Jonathan, however, invited newspaper owners to a meeting, which Bayo Onanuga attended in State House Marina, Lagos and committed to pay compensation for the losses.
All affected newspapers were requested to submit their claims within a given deadline; 13 newspapers sent in their applications within the deadline, with The Nation filing a N200 million claim. However, Jonathan sought media owners understanding to pay N10m each and N130m was released to the NPAN by the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) for that purpose. The NPAN issued N9m cheque each to the 13 newspapers that met the application deadline, the media owners having collectively decided that the association make the payment less N1m each to run NPAN affairs. The Buhari government, however, took over and requested a refund ostensibly because the payment came from the arms fund, something the media owners were in no position to know, a priori. All the media houses that had collected their payment cheques refunded them to the NPAN which paid the refund. It is patently untrue and fake News that some media houses didn’t get the payment NPAN collected on their behalf; cheques were issued for pickup at the Secretariat and some newspapers had not picked up their cheques before the Buharigovernment requested a refund.
Like the N130m for newspapers, the N500million THISDAY refunded was compensation the Jonathan administration paid THISDAY for the Boko Haram bombing of the newspaper’s elegant
Abuja office. The Jonathan administration paid compensation for, and/or rebuilt properties bombed by Boko Haram terrorists in Abuja, The United Nations and THISDAY inclusive. Again, when the
Buhari administration requested refund, it was fully made. The property remains un-rebuilt.
4) Staff Salaries and Other Matters:
We have been very consistent in paying salaries regularly and as at when due every month at ARISE News Channel. We do not owe staffers at ARISE whatsoever despite the fake News of Bayo Onanuga and Dele Alake. Of course, all Newspaper houses are facing the tough economic environment arising from increasing cost of operations and dwindling copy and advert sales and most newspapers owe salaries from time to time. It is, however, taking hypocrisy to a new level for Onanuga to be sermonising about
salary payments. Those who passed through.
The News stable of which he was co-founder and CEO have not forgotten how the company owed 11-month salaries between 1996 and 1997, how protesting staff were forced to forfeit 5-month salary as “contribution to the democratic struggle”, and how union leaders were sacked over the same protest.
All we do is create value. We have had over 3,000 people in the employment of THISDAY/ARISE Media Group over the years and we are proud to have created value in human and resource capital. Dozens of those we have employed here have moved to become ministers, special advisers, ambassadors, commissioners, special assistants, and publishers of print and online newspapers, including several who are Tinubu’s personal staff and executives in his companies. And all have continued to serve with honour. The kind of journalism we practice and the training we give, make our staffers the most sought after by all leaders around the country.
Obaigbena never sought to be NPAN president, he was invited to become President and yet he served for all of 10 years. Despite meeting only about N2m in the association’s account on taking over, with his robust leadership, the association was able to acquire a property of its own for a secretariat and he left N10m in the balance sheet. He was also invited to be the founding president of Africa Media Leaders Forum.
Obaigbena organised seminars and conferences with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (Programme of Seminars) in 1997 and 1999 in Washington, DC as Convener, the Nigeria Investment Summit, and has been keynote speaker at several national and international fora, including those of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland; Dalian, China; and Cape Town, South Africa.
Obaigbena has hosted US presidents and global leaders like Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush; Prime Ministers Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Bertie Ahern, Vicente Fox and John Howard; Chancellor Gerhard Schroder; and other leaders like Collin Powell, Henry Kissinger, Condoleezza Rice, Kofi Annan, Jeb Bush, etc.
Indeed, to invite a US president or a spouse of a US Secretary of State, you must go through White House Security vetting to show you are fit and proper. No misinformation, fake News of Bayo Onanuga and Dele Alake will change Obaigbena’s global trajectory. The journalists at THISDAY and ARISE News Channel are doing their duty by raising pertinent questions.
Rather than addressing our questions, Alake and Onanuga countered with wild and misleading allegations and fake News. We did not dismiss their allegations and have addressed them frontally. We now challenge them to respond with facts to the legitimate questions of the Nigerian people through their media. Present your Presidential candidate for Town Hall meetings, debates and interviews by the independent media that last for more than 8
minutes, and not pre-arranged Townhalls where questions are pre-set, prearranged and rehearsed.
The resort to media bullying tactics, blackmail and fake News will not work. Journalists are not your opponents in the 2023 elections. “When they go low we go high”
SIGNED: FAUZIYA MOHAMMED CHIEF OF STAFF,
OFFICE OF NDUKA OBAIGBENA
I will always refer to the encounter I once had with Kenneth Idiodi. He was then the leader of the Rosicrucian Society in Nigeria, otherwise known as Amok. It was a sit-down at Zodiac Hotel Enugu. Then, I was the reporter of The Guardian in the Coal City.
You know the Amok faith bases its philosophy or belief on the law of Retributive Justice – the law of Karma. That is to say, everything you do in life has its rewards or punishment in equal measure – much like the measure you give, the measure you receive.
I don’t know how much this society draws or links this belief from or with the Bible, but I do recall Jesus Christ warning Simon Peter – return your sword to the scabbard – for he who kills by the sword, dies by the sword.
As a child growing up I listened to one of the epics of Oriental Brothers with the lyrics – ogbu mma ga-esi n’mma na, ogba egbe ga-esi n’egbe na ooo! Translated – he who kills by the sword will die by the sword, he who kills by the gun will die by the nozzle of the gun.
Now, here is where this is relevant in present Nigerian reality – the reason I’m putting details of that encounter out publicly once again, having done so previously.
During that encounter, Idiodi used one event in Nigeria to illustrate his point. He told me of a Nigerian leader who commanded the troop that carried out the Asaba massacre in the heat of the Nigerian civil war – an episode, said to have claimed over 2,000 able-bodied men who had come out to welcome the Nigerian soldiers with songs and dances only to fall in the hail of bullets that descended on them like rainstorms – was not spared by fate.
That commander was to meet his own death in a hail of bullets even as a Head of State. He never mentioned the name of the military top brass. But I used my tongue to count my teeth to come to the answer. You could also do same – use your tongue.
Now, how does this relate? You may have followed the outing of General Yakubu Gowon at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre, Abuja, where he presented his autobiography titled: My Life of Duty and Allegiance, that contained what seemed his memoir on the Nigerian civil war, which he prosecuted as Head of State.
I’m sure you must have been observing the debate therefrom that event. Now, I’m not so much enamoured of the debate as I’m of the nuances surrounding that unfortunate episode and the role of Gowon in it, given my takeaway from that Idiodi encounter some two decades ago.
Does Gowon, now a nonagenarian really believe that presenting a pious, if not saintly account of himself to the world as snippets of his book, which I picked up here and there suggests, truly suffices for the atrocities of that period?
Take the Asaba massacre for example. Was that the handiwork of Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Biafran leader, whom the former Head of State seems to blame for everything that went wrong. Was he also the one that commanded that mass slaughtering of innocent men?
Under your nose as Head of State, you watched citizens slaughtered mercilessly like infested herds in the streets – you watched young girls corralled into leprosy colonies and wantonly raped before being wasted – you watched as train coaches bearing people fleeing the scene were stopped and their human cargoes thrown alive into River Benue like rotten goods for fishes to feast on – you watched all these and didn’t lift a finger.
Then as Head of State, you not only supervised but watched millions of children with distended stomachs, tiny feet, glazy eyes, heavy heads on ropelike necks, practically begging for death to come quickly and save them from further punishment.
You supervised and watched the cataclysmic eruptions from the blitzkrieg on churches, markets and hospitals – all to keep Nigeria together. In your mind the brutal and merciless butchery of innocent people who were not soldiers and had nothing to do with the war could be explained away just like that?
O! It was Ojukwu that caused it. Ojukwu was the one who released the bombs, caused the blockades that led to the kwashiorkor that killed millions or other atrocities thereof? What a pity!
Now, I return to Idiodi. How else could anyone interpret today’s Nigeria without introducing the law of retributive justice that the Amok leader spoke of? How do you fault the link of the commander who massacred over 2,000 souls dying by the barrel of the same gun, even as Head of State?
How could anyone fail to relate what is happening to our Gowon today with the past? This is a Geneal that wakes up to see hundreds of his brothers and sisters being buried in mass graves as was done during the onslaught he supervised against another people and he still thinks it has nothing to do with him?
Now, the story you told at that event in Abuja on Tuesday, is not new. You simply repeated yourself. My interpretation of that event is that you’re a man undergoing daily torture. You wouldn’t be a human being otherwise, given what is before you, which didn’t start today.
You’re probably trying to escape your fate by appealing to public sympathy. How helpful could that be in the face of the clear evidence of your culpability in the deliberate wasting of more than three million souls? Nobody would believe you.
Yes! They could humour you. But that’s the best anyone could do for you. I hear money rained like a fountain and that you left the scene with billions of naira in your kitty. At 90? Haba General!
Now, here is the thing General. None of these would help.
None would work. You have tried prayers. But you forget that the prayer of sinner is an abomination and a reproach before God, unless he repents. You have also written the book. Surely, this too would end up in the trashcan of history – meaningless piece of conjectures, propaganda, half-truths and outright lies – perhaps!
But, why don’t you try the one thing you have been running away from, for more than five decades – go on your knees in total supplication and surrender, repentance and penance – then rise, call all Nigerians and empty yourself with the truth.
Thereafter openly apologise to the millions of souls whose tormenting wailing you probably hear every day during your disturbed sleep and in your quiet moments, but choose to suppress with these baby tales. Ask them for forgiveness, genuinely and see. There may lie the answer you seek.
Try that and see if it wouldn’t be a more efficacious cure for this decades-old wound than this Ojukwu-bashing and those wasted prayer sessions. You might not only have atoned for the past, but saved the future. May God guide you.
My name is Sunny Igboanugo, I’m The Tiny Voice
“Now that the court has ruled against it, we are sure that, in the coming days, we will witness a mass exodus from the ruling party,” were the words with which the African Democratic Congress (ADC) welcomed Wednesday’s ruling of the Federal High Court, Abuja reversing the deadline for party primaries, among others.
Bolaji Abdullahi, spokesman, who conveyed the party’s excitement over the development, said it viewed the ruling as vindication of its objections to key aspects of the electoral body’s guidelines at the time they were issued.
Recalling its specific objections to the strict timelines on membership registration as well as the conduct of party primaries, the statement, said: “The decision of the court on these issues, including those that directly contradict the constitution, is therefore a welcome vindication of our position.”
Stressing that the ruling, which removed the impediment placed by the guidelines on politicians who wished to seek alternative platforms to contest elections, was a positive development that would promote freedom of association, the statement, added: “We believed at the time that that particular restriction was designed to prevent people from leaving the ruling party, APC.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Cuba on Thursday that the United States was laser-focused on changing the communist system, after the island was stunned by a US indictment of its former president Raul Castro.
The US military announced that the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and its escort warships had entered the Caribbean, although President Donald Trump, asked if the deployment was meant to intimidate Cuba, said, “No, not at all.”
Rubio, a Cuban American and vociferous opponent of Havana’s government, described the island 90 miles (145 kilometres) from the US shore as a “failed state” as it suffers a major economic crisis.
“Their economic system doesn’t work. It’s broken, and you can’t fix it with the current political system that’s in place. What they’ve gotten used to all these years is just buying time and waiting us out.
“They’re not going to be able to wait us out or buy time. We’re very serious. We’re very focused. The US preference is always a diplomatic solution, but President Donald Trump has other options at his disposal.”
Stating that Cuba had tentatively accepted an offer by the United States of $100 million in aid in return for reforms, he said it was unclear if the United States would accept Cuba’s terms, as Washington insists on circumventing the military-backed conglomerate GAESA, which dominates the island’s economy.
Rubio said Thursday that the GAESA chief’s Florida-based sister, Adys Lastres Morera, had been arrested and was being held by US immigration authorities, adding in an X post: “Managing real estate assets…while also aiding Havana’s communist regime, until I terminated her permanent resident status.”
The charges against Raul Castro — younger brother of Fidel Castro, the late iconic US nemesis who led Cuba’s communist revolution that culminated in 1959 — stem from the deadly downing of two civilian planes manned by anti-Castro pilots in 1996.
Cuban authorities called on citizens to protest the “despicable” indictment, with the official newspaper Granma urging Cubans to gather outside the US embassy in Havana on Friday at 7:30 am (1230 GMT).
“This isn’t really an accusation, something from more than 30 years ago, but rather a public attack on a public figure,” Fabian Fernandez, a 30-year-old accountant, told AFP in Havana.
Trump in January seized on a US domestic indictment of Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro to send in US forces to depose him and take him into custody.
“The idea is to say, we can do to you what we did to Nicolas Maduro,” said Christopher Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House.
The Maduro operation led to the end of free oil from Venezuela to Cuba, which relied on its ally for nearly half its needs.
Cubans have suffered power outages of up to 20 hours a day and taps running dry.
Runaway inflation has caused the price of basic goods to soar and mountains of trash have piled up on the streets of Havana.
In addition to murder, Castro has been charged with conspiracy to kill Americans and destruction of aircraft.
The Cuban government called the 1996 shootdown was “legitimate self-defense” against an airspace violation.
China and Russia both criticized Trump’s steps on Cuba, which come as he tries to end an unpopular war he started with Israel against Iran.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a press briefing that Washington “should stop brandishing the sanctions stick and the judicial stick against Cuba and stop threatening force at every turn.”
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We believe that under no circumstances should such methods — which border on violence — be used against either former or current heads of state.
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