By Omotoso Okeya
6th June, 2021
It is not unfounded that attacks and counter attacks by the agents, supporters and sympathisers of different governorship aspirants have dominated the media towards the 2022 governorship election in Ekiti State.
Many publications are usually characterized by altercations, wrangling, provocation and even conflict primarily because many writers and analysts do neither respect the views of others nor engage in constructive criticism whenever the need arises.
Everybody is perfectly entitled to freedom of expression and opinion under any genuine democratic dispensation as guaranteed by sections 38 and 39 of the Nigeria 1999 Constitution. Therefore, every citizen can write to express his thoughts, criticise others and be criticized as well.
Unfortunately, some were not trained in the act of initiating ideas through writings but prefer to engage in abstract and baseless criticism which usually degenerates to misunderstanding, askance or conflict in many instances. They attack personalities instead of addressing issues whereas there is a sharp difference between a writer and the idea muted by him. It’s more logical to differentiate between the two. Abstract criticisms lack objectivity, focus and factual basis.
Agreed, conflict as part of life is inevitable but the need to avoid it where necessary and possible cannot be overemphasised
If nothing in an article deserves accolades and you think it’s completely bad, then an objective examiner/critics would usually come up with an alternative article for others to see the difference, know the facts and learn from it.
Likewise, I have recently observed that, an act of deceit, insincerity and sycophancy on the parts of some writers and promoters is one of the root causes of disagreements and warring engagements most especially on the social media platforms.
Conflicting issues are bound to generate wherever a single person writes with pseudo identities in some instances, struggling to promote three governorship aspirants simultaneously. This shoddy and unprofessional practice cannot promote peace among the aspirants and their followers because the treacherous writer would surreptitiously set the aspirants against one another in order to achieve his nefarious objectives of sycophancy and money making.
The role of public relations is to convert hostility to sympathy, prejudice to acceptance, apathy to interest and ignorance to awareness. Hence, no mercenary writer could successfully promote three politicians pursuing a governorship ambition at a time. For instance, in the ongoing political struggles in Ekiti, any single writer who overly or covertly promotes Wale Aribisala, Segun Oni and Kolapo Eleka is a hypocrite and man of double standard, who is more likely to be circumlocutory in his presentations.
Analysts are usually alleged of bias and personal interest. But, is there any perfect analyst anywhere or a living being without an interest ? I doubt much. We all directly or indirectly have one interest or the other in the affairs of our society and this again explains why it’s difficult or even impossible for a single person to promote and defend more than one governorship aspirant in the ongoing dispensation in Ekiti State. Absolute neutrality is not obviously possible in politics.
The apolitical class: civil servants, religious and community leaders still have there favourites among the former and serving political gladiators.
Insincere writers of double standard and pretentious politicians who only criticise and attack personalities are the ones making the media a war theatre in most cases. Their baseless accusations and ferocious attacks would usually generate counter accusations, disaffection and conflicts.
*Omotoso Okeya,*
*Journalist & Public*
*Affairs Analyst*