A strong lesson in maintaining decorum in encounters with the public, especially the media, was delivered last week in Calabar, Cross River State, to the iconoclastic politician Femi Fani-Kayode.
In a development which has gone viral, he had invited the press to promote public projects executed by some governors in the course of a good governance tour.
Typical of a dutiful reporter, Eyo Charles, representing Daily Trust, had asked Fani-Kayode who was bankrolling the project inspection enterprise.
From then on, the parley took a dramatic turn with Fani-Kayode losing his temper and raining expletives as well as threats on the reporter.
While the specific contents of the vitriol-laced hate speech which Fani-Kayode launched at the reporter are trending in the media, he has since expressed remorse and apologized, as well as recanted his hate-laced expletives, apparently in submission to the massive wave of condemnation and recrimination which his conduct at the forum had attracted.
Among the trending concerns of public interest in the saga are, at least, four.
Firstly, is the propriety of the question – whose ostensible aim was to clarify the source of funds for the project inspection exercise, as it had been running largely unknown to the general public.
Given his present status as a private citizen who is bereft of any known, relevant official designation, or even endowment that qualifies him to inspect public projects and pontificate on their integrity, his compatibility for the task remained questionable in the public eye.
Specifically, it is in the public interest to clarify whether taxpayers’ funds were involved.
And it is in this context that the modalities pertaining to his involvement in the exercise remain a matter of significant public interest.
The question is also without prejudice to his profile in the public space as a vociferous iconoclast, as well as current travails, courtesy of his ongoing prosecution by the EFCC for corruption in office, while serving as minister of aviation.
The question of who was bankrolling him was, therefore, most expedient as it was intended, in one vein to open to the public insights into the financial aspect of the largely nebulous project inspection exercise, while also offering him the opportunity to endear himself as a public-spirited Nigerian, whether sponsored or otherwise.
That he failed to answer the question remains a negative for him as it deepened the mystery surrounding the financial aspect of the project monitoring exercise.
The second aspect of public interest was the commendable courage and comportment with which the reporter asked the question and remained calm as well as composed all through the excoriation by Fani-Kayode.
His disposition in the face of the attack on his person provides an eloquent testimonial to the reportorial culture by the Daily Trust stable which upholds the imperative of its operatives deploying wit, courage and discretion, creative approaches to isolate facts from fiction, in their reportage.
So also was the response of the Daily Trust management which aligned with the ethos of credible and responsible journalism to commend and defend the reporter.
The gesture of the management of the newspaper towards the reporter qualifies to serve as a beacon of encouragement to media practitioners who may find themselves confronted with a similar situation where misplaced impunity tends to vitiate the course of public interest.
Thirdly is that his temperamental outburst at the press conference venue and later show of remorse, including his admission of discretion-deficit as well as self-excoriation, point to a syndrome more insidious than is casually considered in many opinion circles across the country.
Viewed against a fallback to several instances in the past where the said Fani-Kayode was involved in speech and or conduct that was unbecoming of a prominent political figure, it provides a disturbing situation that questions his discretion in evaluating public sensitivity to his persona and actions.
Fourthly, was the show of solidarity with the Daily Trust stable by the country’s media establishment and a wide cross section of public opinion circles.
This support points to the huge potential for change in the country’s political fortunes when and if the media takes its proper place as an agenda-setting facility to move Nigeria to the next level.
