Simon Ateba is a reporter with PM News. In his
piece, Ateba said as long as Nigerian journalists
are not paid well, they will continue to accept
'bribe'. Read his thought provoking piece
below...
People have been asking me, “Simon , were
you at that press conference on 14
September where Prophet T.B. Joshua
allegedly gave N50,000 to journalists to
write a positive story on the building
collapse that killed many people?”, my
answer is always the same.
I was not at that event, I do not know if he
gave a bribe, I do not know if it was
N50,000, and cannot comment on it. But I
do not feel better or more righteous in any
way than those who might have collected
anything, if money was given.
The truth is this, as long as journalists in Nigeria
are not paid for months or are given irregular
crummy salaries, as long as they are not
insured, as long as publishers pocket all the
corrupt money they get in the forms of adverts or
special reports from corrupt politicians, and as
long as Nigerians refuse to spend their money on
newspapers, which push publishers to solicit
money from politicians who have pocketed
everything, many journalists will continue to
accept gifts, bribes or whatever you call it.
I understand that foreign journalists at the event
and a Nigerian journalist allegedly rejected the
money. I am happy they allegedly did and that’s
where the profession should be. That’s the ideal
we all want. But that’s not where we are.
Most journalists in Nigeria have no insurance.
Many newspapers in Nigeria have not paid their
reporters for months, some even a year, including
those newspapers that are even getting those
corrupt advert money from government officials.
A CNN, Reuters, Associated Press or BBC
journalist will surely die if he was not paid for
one year, had no insurance, no house to live in,
and no friend to support him.
And many former journalists who are now
successful and even the society at large, are
very wicked. They see a journalist who is striving
to stand out, who wants to be objective and
unbiased, they watch him as life challenges
crush him to death. No car, no house, no
savings, nothing to show for 20 years of work.
And when such a journalist accepts a gift, the
same society says, look at him, he’s corrupt.
He’s biased. He’s unethical.
But the same society screaming does not buy
newspapers, they prefer to spend all their money
on drinks, cigarettes, clothes, bags and cars but
demand and expect higher standards from the
media. So I am sorry to say it won’t happen.
The society is hypocritical and the media
industry is sick. But until there’s a shift, nothing
will change.
You can say these are just excuses. You may
even add that the media should be our
conscience, and only truth is acceptable. You will
be passing a superficial judgement, because you
cannot just should look at corruption in the
media without understanding why the rot is so
deep and the change so hard.
You must understand that it is the product of a
failed society. A corrupt government, a corrupt
judiciary, a corrupt police force, a corrupt army, a
corrupt civil society, a corrupt banking and
financial system, a corrupt educational system, a
corrupt political system, in summary, it is the
product of a failed country that does nothing
when journalists are not paid for months or are
left to wallow in poverty after serving their
nations for 20 years.
I used to know a journalist who passed on after
working for his company for many years in
Lagos, and his wife was given only one month
salary to take care of herself and their kids. I
guess, this, certainly, is not the future we all
envisaged after graduating with a First Class at
the University.
My rambling is getting too long. Let me
summarise.
The journalist who leaked the alleged bribery to
the public claimed that he did so because
journalists were too soft on Prophet T.B. Joshua
and were not reporting the truth.
Hear him: “I observed that Nigerian media were
being too gentle on TB Joshua despite the
glaring irregularities surrounding the collapse. I
read more reports about the “hovering craft” and
how Boko Haram could have sabotaged the
building.
“Very little was reported about the structural
defects of the building. Not much was written
about the fact that the building originally had 2
floors and was being illegally refurbished with 4
additional floors when it collapsed. We didn’t
come hard on the Synagogue Church goons who
attacked first responders. We didn’t highlight the
fact that many of those that perished could have
been saved if NEMA officials weren’t barred from
the site for almost three days! We didn’t make
an issue of the fact that our colleagues who had
gone to report the collapsed building were
molested on Saturday.”
Of course, you all know that these are lies. What
he’s saying is not factual. Or maybe he did not
read reporting of the building collapse enough.
On 15 September, the day after the alleged bribe
was given to journalists, P.M.NEWS published
this editorial: http://
www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2014/09/15/the-
synagogue-tragedy/ . You can read it yourself
and let me know if it looked like they were being
soft on T.B. Joshua or hiding the facts.
The 20-year old newspaper said in that editorial:
“Perhaps most of the dead victims would have
been rescued alive if the church staff and people
perceived as thugs did not prevent officials of
the National Emergency Management Agency,
NEMA, from carrying out rescue operations
immediately the building crumbled.
Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, had
to intervene by visitting the scene of the disaster
and ordering the church staff to leave the site
before rescue work could start in earnest.”
The newspaper concluded it editorial by saying:
“We must go beyond speculation to serious
investigation to unravel the facts and prevent
future tragedies of this magnitude. Those who
are found wanting should be made to face the
full wrath of the law.”
Does that look like a newspaper trying to protect
T.B. Joshua or that did not care about the dead?
Of course not.
But that was not all. the same day, the cover
story of P.M.NEWS in Lagos read: “Boko Haram
Attack: Nigerians Blast T.B. Joshua”.
The lead or the first paragraph of that story
read: “Nigerians have blasted Prophet T.B.
Joshua of the Synagogue Church of All Nations
for claiming that Boko Islamist sect might have
brought down a six-storey building in his church
that has killed more than 40 people.”
That front page story was published on 15
September. Does it look like people who were
buying the story of a jet hovering over the
building before it came down?
These examples were just from P.M.NEWS. It
was the same thing for The Punch, The Nation,
Vanguard, The Sun, ThisDay, Tribune, The New
Telegraph, TheNews Magazine, and even TVC
and Channels TV, as well as other television and
radio stations.
So it is not factual to say that Nigerian
journalists were being soft on T.B. Joshua or
were hiding the facts. It is simply a lie.
If Nigerian journalists collected the money, they
did so because of a sick industry, a failed state
and the reasons I mentioned above. But the
money certainly did not change the facts. And
we all knew the facts even before the audio was
leaked last week.
One thing I can say is that until investigation is
conducted and concluded, no one can claim to
know exactly what led to the building collapse. It
will just be ranting, and rambling that lead to
semantic noise but nothing evidential or
concrete.
I can say more, and go on and on, but for now,
it’s time to mourn the dead. May their souls rest
in peace.
