Kogi Guber: Injury Time Hatchet Job by Osita Chidoka Against Gov Ododo's Case at Supreme Court Reeks of Dirty Money, Media Corruption »

Last night’s broadcast by Channels TV of a carefully curated injury time hatchet job by dissembling PDP chieftain Osita Chidoka stunk like a skunk, desecrating the station’s once hallowed studios with the odours of permanent infamy. The show of shame was, as usual, hosted by a brazen Seun Okinbaloye who did his best to shore up his guest’s blatant lies about the last off-cycle governorship elections in Kogi State with corny commentaries which fell flat in delivery like bad jokes. In forty-five minutes of infamy we watched two spectacles – the slow-burning downfall of a brilliant journalist who seems to have lost his soul to something filthy and the other another comical episode of naked dancing by a promiscous political hack trying to reinvent himself as a good governance advocate – NGO and all.

And all for what? A futile bid to set agenda and influence the Lord Justices of the Supreme Court who are set to hear the final appeals on the case involving the subject matter this very morning? So, Osita Chidoka who prides himself, even on this particular shameful outing, as the PDP’s legal marvel, has not learnt from a long line of defeats in similar cases handed to him and his parties, that the Lawlords do not respond to such deceitful stimuli? Or does he believe that by corralling ChannelsTV and the babbling Okinbaloye and taking them along for a ride this time around, he can do some sponsored abracadabra and pull a wool over the ironcast erudition that will be sitting in those hallowed Chambers and calling those cases in a few hours time? What insufferable impertinence!

It is essential to acknowledge that based on developments in the case so far, solid facts and law lie at the foundation of Governor Ododo’s court victories so far. The tribunal and the appeal court have upheld his win on the basis of a solid mountain of unshakeable evidence and irrefutable legal arguments. Anyway, the entire show of shame is a stark reminder of the dangers of biased media propaganda. Despite the Tribunal and Appeal Court’s unequivocal validation of Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo’s victory, ChannelsTV has chosen to air a one-sided, foul and misleading narrative, seeking to sway public opinion in favour of the governor’s rivals. Thus, this last-minute blatant attempt to undermine the rule of law and the democratic process warrants a critical eye by the National Broadcasting Commission and other regulators of the media space.

For one, Chidoka, who claimed he withheld his hatchet job till findings have been made in the cases at the trial and first appellate stage ought to have known, as a senior lawyer, that one more stage, the actual Rubicon, still remained. By rushing to intervene on the eve of the announced hearing, he has made it so that the final court will have one more crisis of confidence to labour under in the eye of any member of the public overcome by his noxious effluence last night. Of course, we know this is his aim and not any altruistic leanings towards electoral integrity. No matter how much he fulminates such, he is a ‘job-man’ who wishes to go down in history as the elemental person who forced the hand of fate against the run of play.

I do not doubt that opposition lawyers will see his exertions as a lifeline to them and will try to browbeat the Supreme Court at the hearing today to allow them reopen their case for fresh evidence – by which they will mean Chidoka’s rickety ‘research’. In other words, they will try to rely on his made up data, incorrect attributions, manipulated materials, pre-programmed results, shoddy equipment, perverse processes, illogical analysis and preprogrammed results, to waste the time of the court at hearing. It will not matter to them that it is clearly defined by falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism. Our confidence is that the Supreme Court does not suffer such fools gladly.

The Supreme Court, comprising the most uncompromising legal minds in our Judiciary, is only moved by trial rectitude and I dare say that respondent Ododo’s legal team have been painstaking from day one and the judicial validation he prays for at this apex and final level will rely on the substance of his case, the law and evidence and the integrity of the judiciary.

The media has a sacred responsibility to inform and educate the public, not to manipulate and mislead. Okinbaloye should know that his blatantly biased outing last night has severe implications for the neutrality and credibility of his employer and the overall media landscape in Nigeria. By choosing sides and prioritizing sensationalism over fact-based reporting, he has tarnished ChannelsTV’s reputation and compromises its role as a trusted news source.

As for Osita Chidoka, he needs reminding that a fellow who operated at the forefront of the PDP’s 16 years of misruling Nigeria needs to stop trying to project virtue to Nigerians, because he and his co-travellers in those one and a half decades of ‘politicians deceiving people’ are dead to us, fully buried in their swamp which Nigerians drained so decisively in 2015. Till tomorrow, the nation still flounders in the catastrophic quagmire they left behind through their reckless plunder, institutionalised rot, and soul-crushing misgovernance.

A man who helped to oversee such systemic corruption till it metastasized into a malignant tumor in the nation’s brain that still aggressively devours whatever good leadership cells we can find till today, thus stunting our every aspiration to national greatness needs to stop posturing about good governance. The citizens they left in the lurch with broken promises, stolen wealth, and shattered dreams will never forget.

The Supreme Court’s verdict on Governor Ododo’s victory will be final and binding. No amount of media propaganda can undo what has been rightfully accomplished by good practice and procedure all the way from the Tribunal through the Court of Appeal to berth at the Supreme Court. We urge ChannelsTV to desist from spreading falsehoods and instead focus on balanced factual reporting. The democratic process and the rule of law must be respected and upheld, not undermined by biased media narratives.

Written by Yahaya Shehu Ahmed
Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Digital Media.