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Omatseye: Infecting Reason With Vitriol By Abdul-Latif Rasaq
Newspaper or magazine columnists exert influence around the world, especially among their readers. Which means that whatever opinions or viewpoints they express must be done with a great sense of responsibility, objectivity and fairness. No columnist, however informed, should assume that his readers are credulous or gullible. In fact, the greatest folly is the assumption that your readers cannot distinguish opinions laden with prejudice and bias from a neutral examination of public issues.
For sometime, Mr. Sam Omatseye has developed the propensity of taking on particular public figures to pour his personal vitriol on them, either for the joy of it or sheer malice. Take for instance, his needless verbal aggression on Professor Pat Utomi, the President of the Lagos Business School, who recently marked his 50th birthday anniversary. While Prof. Utomi was giving glory to God for this crowning moment of his life, Mr. Sam Omatseye chose the occasion to write uncomplimentary things about the Professor. Through dint of hard work, the Professor transformed himself from a journalist into one of the leading gurus of business management. But since Omatseye was sadistically looking for faults in others rather than their virtues, one wonders whether public interest is the motivation for his caustic writing.
His most recent victim was Vice-President Atiku Abubakar whom he viciously attacked for being a “wimp” in his open disagreement with President Olusegun Obasanjo. Did Atiku Abubakar commit any crime for reacting to events rationally and wisely since the strain in the relationship with his boss became public? Why should a columnist insult any public figure for not behaving in the manner the columnist would have recommended, even if impractical or vacuous? (THE SUNDAY SUN FEB. 19, 2006)
According to Mr. Omatsye, Atiku’s “passivity” amounted to “capitulation” and that by not standing up to his boss, the Vice President is undermining his own respect and leverage within his own political machine. Besides, he argues that this “capitulation” erodes the capacity of Atiku’s followers to fight on his behalf, which affects his own standing in his political society.
Like Professor Utomi, Atiku Abubakar was Omatseye’s victim of unwarranted verbal aggression. But in his zeal to pillory the Vice President, the columnist had contradicted his previous position on the rift between General Obasanjo and his deputy. When Atiku Abubakar addressed an audience in Lagos last year, in which he urged that a democratic leader should have a receptive ear, mind and heart, Mr. Omatseye took issues with the Vice President. He attacked Atiku for openly criticizing his President, a conduct the columnist described as inconsistent with the limited powers our Presidential system confers on a Vice President.
Strangely, Mr. Omatseye is now urging Atiku to either declare total war on the President or be regarded as a coward (something of a wimp in the columnist’s precise words). Does the columnist have short memories to have forgotten so soon the position he took previously over this same issue? Or is he simply taking the intelligence of his readers for granted?
For not following the line of stupidity the columnist would have recommended, Atiku Abubakar has been called uncharitable names by Mr. Omatsye. Describing Atitku as “dead” in “limb” and “mind” because the Vice President refused to exchange knuckle sandwich with General Obasanjo, Mr. Omatseye demonstrated sheer personal animosity towards Atiku Abubakar rather than producing sensible arguments to convince anyone why the Turakin Adamawa should follow a vacuous course the columnist would have wanted.
Using the apparent “loss” of Adamawa State as an example of Atiku’s political “demise”, the columnist did not put issues in their proper context. Given the bastardization of democracy and strict regimentation of the “reformed” PDP, in which the sovereignty of the people was thrown overboard through imposition of leaders and de-registration of certain party members, why should Omatseye blame Atiku for not resisting forces that don’t bother about the basic tenets of democratic practice?
With a PDP leadership imposed by the President and a party that has brazen contempt for court orders, what more sensible thing could the Vice President do better than continue to explore the available legal and constitutional avenues to assert his right to associate politically? Despite Atiku’s seeming “demise” in the perception of Omatseye, the Vice President can still not be detached from the hearts and minds of his loyalists across the country. The recent registration of MRDD (Movement for the Restoration and Defence of Democracy) and the Advance Congress of Democrats (ACD) was a clear sign that it is impossible to dismiss the Atiku factor in our national politics.
If, indeed Atiku is a “wimp” as Omatseye imagines, why was it necessary for the President to deploy all the might he can command, including the party machinery he had imposed, to deracinate the political influence of the Vice President? In fact, if the Vice President is such a paper tiger, why was all the excessive use of force necessary against him? Why was such a formidable coalition of enemies of democracy necessary to get rid of a man the columnist regards as a wimp? Is the PDP weaker or stronger with the exit of Atiku followers into new parties?
The President and his hatched men would have long wanted Atiku out of the way but he has so far fought off all the methods they would have used to impeach him, including the so-called FBI dossier, which eventually did not implicated the Vice President. Atiku’s influence at the National Assembly is formidable and the President and his hatchet men are well aware of this. And the fact that Atiku Abubakar has survived this far, despite all the conspiracies to stampede him out of office, shows that his staying power is a virtue. Which political wimp could have kept his chin up in the face of these formidable enemies baying for Atiku’s jugular vein?
According to Omatsye, Atitku Abubakar probably lost the will to fight because the President has some dirt on him (Atiku). Given the vindictive nature of the our President, if such “dirt” is provable and sustainable, General Obasanjo would not have wasted a minute in deploying the information to end Atiku’s political career once and for all?
The columnist was naïve to think that Atiku’s enemies are “succeeding” because they are on “higher moral ground.” Their weapon of perceived superior morality is so blunt that his enemies themselves know the limit they can fool the public with such sanctimonious pretence. The recent indictment of Nigeria Ports Authority Board over the multi-billion dollar financial scandal by the EFCC report submitted to the President shows that morality is the weakest weapon Atiku’s enemies can use against anyone. Because they know all their geese are swans, the Vice President’s opponents lack the qualification to question anyone else’s moral credentials.
It is unfortunate that a respected columnist can fall prey to this morality charade of the President’s camp and even imagine that it is the factor behind their conquest of perceived opponents. Credulity is one of the worst qualities in any writer or columnist. Buying the dummy of superior morality, as the President’s camp perceives itself is the biggest folly a columnist can commit. The President’s camp are not beatified saints because they have their own feet of clay and cannot, therefore, fool Nigerians with such charade, which Mr. Omatseye seems to have imbibed uncritically.
Unable to see anything good in the Vice President, Mr. Omatseye celebrates the apparent “ostracism” of the Vice president by the “core north.” This perception is misguided in the context of current realities in Nigeria. The so-called “core north” is today standing solidly behind Atiku because they know he is a victim of his insistence on respecting the constitution, a position which threw him on collision course with the promoters of the third term agenda.
Indeed, if Atiku ever fell out with the north in the past, it was largely because of the perception that he was slavishly loyal to the President, sometimes at the expense of their own political interest. Let no one, however, deceive himself that the north has abandoned Atiku and thrown him to the wolves. If the Yoruba had to embrace President Obasanjo in 2003 after they had initially rejected him in 1999, what makes Mr. Omatseye think that Atiku is repudiated by his own people at a time he is fighting enemies of democracy that have no regard for the sovereignty of the people in their calculation to achieve perpetual power?
Whether MDD or MRD is an amalgam of “malcontents” or “contradictory forces” is beside the point. What is wrong for people to seek alternative platform when democracy is facing brutal murder by enemies within the PDP? Again, if the PDM had no direction after General Yar Adua’s demise, why did the movement become a factor in providing the much needed support base for President Obasanjo in 1999? Why are they so influential that the President had to turn to Atiku to save his political skin when Gen. Babangida and co. were determined to dump Obasanjo in 2003? Mr. Omatseye was writing utter rubbish; his motives were just to willfully insult the Vice President out of sheer personal antipathy.
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