This week, many Nigerians reacted with shock to the viral video of Femi Fani Kayode (FFK) tearing into a Daily Trust journalist, Eyo Charles, in Calabar, the state capital of Cross River.
This happened during Femi’s parley with journalists at the end of his week long your of the state.
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Although the question was edited out of the video, the verbal assault was said to be a response to Charles’s question as to who was bankrolling FFK’s ”Good Governance Tour” of PDP states.
There is a lot to unpack from that video and its aftermath. FFK has been a prominent figure in our national politics, so people were not exactly surprised at his conduct.
What surprised many was the fact that he did it in public and shared the video himself with his followers on social media to celebrate his telling off of a ”rude” journalist.
This is why some people are still shaking their heads.
So Today, I’m going to address some of the questions from the perspective of psychology.
Another concern of mine personally, was the fact that other journalists at the press conference supported FFK and even apologized to him saying ”sorry sir” and then condemned Charles by chorusing ”you see your life.”
Which appears to give validation to charges that as far as some journalists are concerned, once there is a promise of payment, you can do or say whatever you want.
But this is a discussion for another day.
– Taker or giver? –
In the video, FFK said ”I don’t take, I spend.”
What does this mean and is FFK a truly a giver?
The organizational psychologist, Adam Grant, wrote his bestselling book ”Give and Take: x” where he group people into three categories: the givers, the takers and the marchers.
Takers are self-centered, selfish attention hoggers.
They are more concerned about the self than about the group or others.
Wherever they go, their interest is self-satisfaction.
”Taking is using other people solely for one’s own gain, ” Adam Grant wrote.
Givers on the other hand, are selfless, altruistic do-gooders.
There are more concerned with the group and others rather than overly consumed with self.
”This is what I find most magnetic about successful givers: they get to the top without cutting others down, finding ways of expanding the pie that benefit themselves and the people around them, ” Grant explained.
”Whereas success is zero-sum in a group of takers, in groups of givers, it may be true that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.”
This echoes Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner who said:” Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”
Finally, there are marchers who expect in return whatever good they do.
“This group believes in ”an eye for an eye.”
Giving this background, is FFK a giver as he claimed in the video? No.
This can be easily demonstrated by how quickly he changes bosses or to put it more eloquently, his bankrollers.
I agree with Fredrick Nwabufo who said
”Femi lives only for himself.
“He is vacant of character and principles.
“He stands for nothing and falls for everything as long as he gets fed.”
We know that it was President Obasanjo who gave him an appointment after he had called the former president every dirty name in the book.
But once he was appointed, he confessed that he was against Obasanjo because he didn’t know him then.
But he immediately, he left Obasanjo government, he turned against him.
In 2011, in a feud between Obasanjo and former President Babangida, he took the side of IBB.
In a Leadership Newspaper interview in August of the same year, he dialled back his opposition to Obasanjo saying ”I never said that Obasanjo was ‘’an ingrate’’ and neither did I say that he was ‘’ungrateful to people’’ –as was widely reported.
“I would never say such a thing about a man that I have come to see as a father to me and a man that gave me the opportunity to serve my country.”
Seeing that the template he used for/against Obasanjo worked, he turned against President Jonathan beckoning him to appoint him if he wanted him to shut up.
So in December 2013, in an interview on Channel’s Television, this time he agreed with Obasanjo and said the nation was going adrift and claimed that the 18-page letter Obasanjo wrote to Jonathan spelt doom for PDP and Jonathan’s 2015 ambition.
The strategy worked. Like Obasanjo before him, Jonathan soon invited FFK to be a campaign spokesman.
Then he turned on Obasanjo again: ”The truth is that he knows that President Goodluck Jonathan will win next month’s presidential election and that is why he wants to destroy the credibility of the whole process right from the outset,” Premium Times of February 15, 2015, reported Fani-Kayode to have said.
”In view of these assurances, ” he continued ”one wonders why President Obasanjo is creating such a hue and cry over nothing.
“What is he seeing that no one else can see?
“One wonders what his motives are.
“Does he have to rule every government by proxy?
“Must every leader take instructions from him?
“Is it a case of ”if I cannot control you and tell you what to do then you must go?”
The foregoing shows that Femi is not only a taker, but also a grabber who goes to anywhere bankroller calls.
‘If President Buhari gives him an appointment now, he would become his ally and forget all his sins.
– Distancing oneself from the victim –
In his apology, FFK said he apologized for using the word stupid against ”a journalist”.
And said he never threatened anyone.
Now we know that is a lie.
One way psychologists spot a lie is when a perpetrator distances self from the victim.
By saying a journalist and not using his name or the employer’s name even though he knew Charles worked for the Daily Trust, he was trying to put a psychological distance between himself and the victim.
The same way President Bill Clinton said: ”I never had sex with that woman.”
There are many things to unpack from that video – including how he contradicted himself many times in one short video – but this two points show that FFK is not only a liar, but also a gun for hire who will do the bidding bankroller.
So, who is bankrolling FFK?
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