By Kodilinye Obiagwu
The online news platform, Premium Times served a supposedly healthy meal for the curious reading public on the former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi.
The medium had gathered its spicy ingredients from the potpourri of the famed Pandora Papers, an investigation project by the global International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
Nothing wrong if Premium Times wanted to serve its readers a dose of good meal of investigative journalism. But what looks skewed here and that has ruined the meal is the wrong ingredient, the underlying and questionable motive.
Read Also: Pandora Papers: I broke no law, says Peter Obi
On trial by the medium, is Obi; and Premium Times came at the former governor with the same zeal and righteous indignation with which the Pharisees came at the woman accused of adultery in the Bible.
Obi fell short of the high standards of Premium Times. The publication was intrigued, felt let down and disappointed that the former governor was finally just human, as the rest of us.
So, in-spite of the grandstanding, Obi was just another lying corrupt and conniving politician, a greedy cheating successful billionaire from the South East, the news medium must have concluded. And how dare he feel he has the credentials to aim to sit in Aso Rock, it must have been further riled.
However, in questioning Obi, Premium Times laid bare its disappointment in its words that sought the lie in Obi’s credentials, in the politics of the South East and the country.
In the 2019 presidential campaign, where Obi ran as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) vice presidential candidate, his lucid analysis, articulate grasp of the economy and governance, clearly gave the hope that Nigeria was heading somewhere in the campaign for real change.
Earlier, for eight years in Anambra, Obi set the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) on a pedestal that was establishing the party as a bludgeon in the region’s (and national) politics. His tenure marked an era of stability in Anambra despite the uncertain nature of the state’s politics, then.
Successive governments in Anambra will be staring at the template of governance Obi left behind, asking the question; “How did he do it?”
Obi was out there to be commended and emulated. He redefined the change needed in politics and pointed inwards and not outwards. He was out there offering a transformational avenue to render selfless services to the state as a political leader. His humility was a trademark; his minimalistic disposition weird to the non-initiates.
The Chairman of CLO Anambra, Mr. Vincent Ezekwueme recently told journalists in Enugu: “It is of great significance to note that Obi attuned himself as a selfless, patriotic, humble, honest, servant leader having exhibited these traits both in his public and private life as well as unprecedented absolute integrity, transparency, love for God and humanity.
“The apogee of his integrity manifested when he left office in 2014, he left a huge amount of money unprecedented in the history of Nigeria, while his contemporaries incurred debts.”
Perhaps no former governor in the South East and indeed, the country, has been as busy and involved in the affairs of people as Obi, doing good as it were. His level of philanthropy is on a pedestal that has left even his most ardent critics in awe.
Week in week out, since Obi left office, there are scores of incidents of him reaching out to hospitals lacking basic facilities, youths and women in need of empowerment, schools in need of renovations, wherever he can find one.
Premium Times perhaps imagined that Obi was about to escape the reality that no one can stay in politics and remain honest.
The Pandora’s Papers gathered enough evidence for the platform to gloat. At the end the day, it should have reined in its cause with a level of professionalism; it didn’t open the Pandora’s Box on Peter Obi.
But in a poorly documented environment like us, where no journalist can boast of knowing how much crude oil the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) sells daily annually, journalists will have no choice but to rely on projects like the Pandora Papers. And the question therein is how such are used. Are those reports used to haunt the enemies of sponsors, pull down people who have significantly done their bit in changing things here, or hold up such reports as evidence against the politicians?
Premium Times should have tempered its zeal knowing that Obi had been investigated and cleared at the highest security levels. Did he run for governorship for two terms without such scrutiny or would he have aspired for the highest office with such awareness that his closet will not be thrown out in the public? And so, as illustrious as the meta- investigation of the online medium is on Obi, might seem, it was ever going to be seen as a hatchet job.
If the paper was so high on the ideals, why has it waited till now to investigate Obi? Is Peter’s profile a problem for those angling for the same political office with him?
Who wants Peter stoned?
The import of this is that Premium Times is celebrating its anticipated fall of Obi in a matter of ‘he is guilty as charged’. But only the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and other relevant agencies should investigate Obi or anyone else and not the media. Obi has indicated his readiness to let his years in office be examined.
Something is lost when the Media plays out as a court room or acts as prosecutor and jury. Once that route is taken, it diminishes its moral strength and weakens its position.
A politician’s best defense is his track record and performance in office. Actually, no politician can defend himself beyond what the facts say.
The trial Obi is facing is incidentally not that of his performance but in spite of it. And that is what Premium Times is latching on.
The Paper had stated: “But beyond the facade of priggish speeches and appearances, an investigation by PREMIUM TIMES has now shown that Mr. Obi is not entirely transparent in his affairs as he likes Nigerians to believe.”
Let Nigerians be the judge of that. As I asked earlier, who wants Peter Obi stoned?
Obiagwu, a senior journalist, wrote from Enugu
