By Okoh Aihe

THE election season has the magic of driving me to images of the past; a particular story brings a wry smile to my face. One day at the National Association of Broadcasters Conference, NAB, in Las Vegas, my friend, who used to play very heavily in Nollywood, was interested in buying a particular camera lens to enhance the movie output of his company.

Meanwhile, a guy got his eyes fixed on my friend, perhaps awaiting his final decision. With his patience exhausted, he moved closer to my friend to find out why he needed to buy such a lens. “Are you a politician?” he asked. It was my friend’s turn to be perplexed.

Without giving him further opportunity to continue in that perplexity, he explained to my friend that the lens was mostly favoured by politicians, who were always anxious to double or multiply the attendance at their political rallies. 

Something struck me immediately. One, there is a general belief all over the world that politicians are insincere. Two, that politicians were always ready to distort the truth in order to enjoy some advantages or personal gains. Oh, like that young man in New York, a Republican, George Santos, who got into the US Congress with dubious credentials, dubious names, and dubious everything to the extent that people are saying: “We don’t really know who this guy is.”

Does this story have any similarities to something we know in this part of the world? These are great times for television. Political campaigns are in full steam as politicians move from one end of the country to another, promising heaven and earth and a little slice of the sun and the moon, jumbled together to give a special blend of our politicians’ capacity for abracadabra. 

Almost no day goes by without a live telecast of a major political event, complete with a large crowd. Is the crowd fake or doubled? I am convinced that what we see on television is real because the people are so boxed into a surreal existence that some elaborate drama, which, our politics provides in real life, is needed to spice up the daily drag of life.

I am happy that some of these stations are making some money out of politics to support their operations. The reason being that, when an economy is impaired or failing, one of the first sectors to be adversely affected is the advertising sector. Plus, they make a little money, and the broadcasters are doing well by transporting into our homes the escapades and adventurism of some politicians whose entertainment value makes Nollywood look small. Promises are rolling out in torrents.

I will build every road in your domain. Every child will be at school. Your people will no longer be hungry. Universities will no longer go on strike for a full academic session, and transportation by rail, road, and air will be easy and pleasurable. And the crowd gets ecstatic and delirious! 

Is there something we are missing here? Methinks. One of the beauties of television is its immediacy and its ability to capture that immediacy for today and store it for tomorrow. As a result, those who make promises are summoned tomorrow to account for their promises made today. Have our broadcasters been able to do that?

Not a straight answer yet. I think that before the campaigns gathered momentum last year, the broadcasters were given the scare of their lives when government, through the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, warned that fake news and disinformation could pose a serious threat to the 2023 elections.

It was a subtle warning because, even now, the definition of fake news remains only in the purview of government, which could use it to achieve any end. Most news stories that do not enjoy the approval of government and those with the capacity to intimidate, are now branded as fake news, and some media professionals may be trying to unlearn what they were taught at school.

Perhaps, in order to validate the position of the minister, the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, which he supervises, also warned against fake news and hate speech during campaigns. Speaking at a sensitisation programme in Abuja, the NBC Director General, Mallam Balarabe Ilelah, sent out a warning, saying the Broadcast Code has made generous provisions to deal with those who breach the law.

The position of the broadcast regulator is in order. For as long as I can remember, the commission has always been proactive in stemming the deviousness of our politicians. Except that under this government, truth wears a coat of many colours that could only be interpreted from the eyes of top government functionaries.

What is missing at the moment? The audacity to flash politicians’ lives and promises while strutting the podium with provocative boldness and making promises in order to pile more layers on top of those made previously. Unfortunately, the stations have been cowed into caution. Or is it because they are politically aligned for an endless flow of lucre? 

I appreciate the boldness of some AM TV presenters and those who handle some special political programmes who are still able to interrogate the arrogance of those who claim to have the license to rule. History is documenting even the on-air harassment that some of them suffer. But I believe that the past remains in pictures.

President Goodluck Jonathan raised the fuel pump price from N65 to N140 in January 2012 to address the fuel subsidy issue and create a more realistic pricing structure for the product. There was outrage. Civil society and political groups gathered in Lagos for nine days, singing and dancing in vehement opposition to what appeared to be a scandalous price increase.

The government buckled, and the price was pegged at N97 after negotiations. Those who spoke in that programme are still alive, a number of them are in this government. Fuel queues have lingered in Nigeria for more than a year because the system has failed the elementary process of demand and supply, and above all, nobody really knows the price of fuel now, not to mention diesel and kerosene. Some of those who led that protest are now supervising the sufferings of Nigerians! 

In 2015, the political campaigns were intense, and words became far cheaper than the epidemic pain troubling the nation today. The president was clueless. He couldn’t even solve the simple problem of power generation or even deal with his primary commitment of securing the lives of the people. Promises were made.

Nigerians were promised a new world and new experiences by a class of people led by a former military leader who, during his first sojourn in office, broke the spine of the nation. Words are cheap, and time goes at the speed of light. Nearly eight years later, Nigerians have gotten themselves into a cul-de-sac, and the coming elections present an exit point. However, as politicians parade around the country in their flowing agbada, the truth appears to be buried.

Unfortunately, poverty has been so weaponised in Nigeria that it may damage the ability of people to make informed decisions and choices based on the scanty truth that is available. This is why I appeal to broadcasters that, as the nation heads towards the elections, they need to take advantage of their profession and do much more for the ordinary folks out there by following the laws of the land and the Nigeria Broadcast Code to continue to speak the truth that is backed by law. 

It is true that some candidates will not want to speak on certain platforms. It is also true that some of them have cupboards full of dry skeletons and are afraid of anyone capable of throwing light at them without fear or favour. What I can say is that the journey since 2015 has been much shorter than the amount of pain it has caused.

It is not evil for key actors in this administration to trumpet how well they have done for the nation and its people. But what is the truth on the roadwork, from 2015 to 2023. The TV camera can tell a good story by documenting the true story, not the fabricated one: the pervasive insecurity in the country, the mass graves in Kaduna, Benue, Plateau, Maiduguri and other places in the country; the bad roads everywhere; the perennially declining power supply; and the hunger.