From human history, the king’s palace or presidential palace everywhere in the world, has always been a prestigious place, unceasingly flowing with milk and honey, and, of course, luxuries of all kinds. Notwithstanding not lacking its side of hazard, whether one’s job is classified among that of boy-boy or big-man, working at presidential abode is experience worth savouring.
Nigeria’s Aso Rock cannot be an exception. If there could be anything different, it would most likely be heightening of lavishness.
At a time all aspects of life in Nigeria is undergoing excruciation for survival, those in Aso Rock, as well as other related quarters in Nigeria, are immune from the hardship ravaging lives of millions of homes in the country. It is only the resonating sound of moaning and murmurings everywhere in the country that those in Aso Rock have been hearing.
That is why quitting such job is not without surprises, especially in Nigeria, where resigning from mouth-watering public office work, is extremely rare. In some sort of suddenness and surprises, it is amidst public outcry against deteriorating economic policies of the Bola Tinubu administration, which the present woes in the country are traced to, that Ajuri Ngelale resigned from being the spokesman of the president. Admitting that it was “agonising decision”, Ngelale adduced that” it was taken “to frontally deal with a vexatious medical situation” at his “nuclear family.”
As many, including this writer, were taking Ngelale’s rationalisation with a grain of salt, newspaper report trailing it have been confirming that there were more to it than meet the eyes. According to Premium Times, “he left the position after he became suspicious that he could be humiliated out of office.” The Cable corroborated existence of “medical issue in his family” but added that that was not “the primary reason for his decision” to quit. Relying on “insiders” account, Premium Times disclosed that “the presidency has been shopping for an experienced and competent media professional to replace Mr. Ngelale” on the assumption that “the journalist has so far failed to demonstrate sufficient capacity to effectively deliver on the job.”
It is not hard to see that supremacy war has been raging coldly but deadly among the president’s appointees and members of his immediate family. It is questionable to Nigeria’s nationhood of over 100 years that since the eve of the 21st century that the country returned from military to civil rule, the deciders-in-chief at the presidency, with exception of that of cosmopolitan, sophisticated and patriotic Olusegun Obasanjo, have been cabals after cabals, made up of tribesmen of the president in power.
It is also glaring to millions of discerning eyes that the one-man riot act over-peppered with youthful exuberance, garnished with unpalatability of gangsterism and poisoned with ethnic bigotry, which sexagenarian Bayo Onanuga fraught into the polity in the build up to the 2023 presidential election, remains unbated even when Tinubu has since taken “his turn” as Nigeria’s President.
The multiplication of presidential spokesperson that Tinubu has continued from where Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari stopped has given princely credence to idiomatic expression that too many cooks spoil the broth. What is the rationale behind having more than one spokesperson for the president, whereas there are enough professional information managers and speechwriters who, as civil servant, are permanent employees at the presidency?
Nothing could be more preposterous than the thinking that Ngelale does not have requisite experience. Before he was appointed senior special adviser to President Buhari in 2019, the graduate of Political Science and History from University of Kansas in the United States had worked with AIT and Channels televisions in Nigeria, where he had been investigative reporter, news editor, producer and presenter.
With ten years and above as a journalist, if Ngelale was a lawyer and called to the Nigerian bar at the same time he started his career in journalism with AIT in 2011, he would have been classified into category of senior lawyers, accompanying with the status of being a partner or associate in any law firm; he could have become a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN); and Attorney General of the federation or state. He would have also been qualified to become a High Court judge, and in the next two years, he would have been eligible for a bench at the Supreme Court judge.
In the industry that Ngelale has been plying his trade, Yakubu Mohammed, one of Nigeria’s celebrated journalists became editor of the then high flying National Concord when he was not up to 10 years in journalism. In fact, he was less than ten years as a journalist when he co-founded trailblasing Newswatch with Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu and Dan Agbese.
Upon the heroic status he attained, even after being assassinated in 1986, incidentally, the year Ngelale was born, Giwa was not more than ten years in the journalism profession.
If anyone among the founders of Newswatch was appointed presidential spokesperson in the mid-1980s would it have been wise to describe anyone of them as inexperienced?
Could a presidential spin-doctor in this digital age have much difficulty in getting contact of relevant persons? In this era, what is required to reaching out to necessary contacts is the scriptural admonition recorded in Matthew 7:7: “ask”, “seek” and “knock” Could it be that the 37- year old journalist, who is not digital alien, was unwilling or unable to do any of the three simple Bible-instructed actions?
Notwithstanding whatever superlative nomenclature the job title is embellished with nowadays, a spokesperson at any station of work is simply the chief reporter of the office of the principal occupant. Being reportorial in nature and with the ease of presidential paraphernalia, the job of a chief reporter of a president may not be as tedious and tasking as that of a newspaper editor.
The work cut out for a spokesperson neither requires acerbity and logical subjectivity of an advocate-columnist nor the sophistry of a propagandist and persuasive power of a salesman that have been made to become convention by government information manager in Nigeria today.
In addition to possessing qualities of a good reporter, what a chief reporter of public office holder needs is combination of honesty and loyalty – honesty to oneself and humanity; and loyalty to the state and the leader he works under.
This is one of the areas where combined skills of a reporter and editor must be found in a journalist.
It is on this score that Oluremi Oyo, who worked under Obasanjo, remains exceptional and deserves to be emulated by others.
Apart from few instances in which human vulnerability to flaws might have come to the fore, Ngelale seemed inclined to be following Oyo’s example.
The health challenge that Ngelale alluded to may not be far from homesickness, an illness occasioned by distancing himself from family, necessitating the longingness with emotional distress and desperation to reunite with them after not being able to feel at home on account of unfriendly and ill-treatment meted to him by his co-workers at workplace, those who consider him a stranger. It is scapegoatism and another public show of the failure of the Tinubu presidency. Ngelale is only being made Aso Rock’s whipping boy at the moment.
For not allowing himself to be cowed by the current cabal at Aso Rock, Ajuri Ngelale has again proven that the Ogoni blood of self-assertiveness and innate ability to call whoever’s bluff remain undiluted in him. Rather, the fertilization from the blood of a German-American woman and a Nigerian man of Ogoni origin, which gave rise to his birth have consolidated his character of boldness.
Nsikak Ekanem sent this piece from Lagos through [email protected]
