Akintunde-Johnson and the Trouble with Perception

Sulaimon Bala Idris

In The Art of Political Lying, the 17th century British satirist, Jonathan Swift contemplated the maxim that ‘truth will always prevail’. He argued that while this might be true, so much damage would have been done by the triumph of falsehood such that truth’s victory, when it eventually gained, is rendered worthless: “If a lie be believed only for one hour, it has done its work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when we come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale has had its effect…”

Writing in THISDAY newspaper of January 15, 2022, in an article titled, “2023 Gladiators: My Perceptions”, Femi Akintunde-Johnson, a well-known ex-muckraker, announced that he was embarking on a self-appointed task of profiling some presidential aspirants ahead of the 2023 general elections.
Although he did not state it, one would be safe to assume that in embarking on this task, Akintunde-Johnson’s motive was to carry out objective assessment of the presidential aspirants and by so doing give Nigerians the opportunity to make informed choices as we head into the elections. After all, this is what journalism is about.

Unfortunately, Akintunde-Johnson made it clear from the onset that in writing his assessments of the aspirants, he was not going to be bothered with facts or evidence, but would instead rely solely on his perception. “My perceptions are simply self-designed criteria to which we intend to sieve the aspirants through…we will hover across the names of random aspirants in no particular order, and make our perceptions known,” he declared.

Perception is a way of knowing. However, the trouble with perception, as some philosophers have argued, is that like murky water, it could easily disguise all manner of impurity and rot. Perception, no matter how strong it is, cannot take the place of verifiable truth because it gives too much room for cognitive distortion. In the hands of a practiced muckraker, perception becomes an even more dangerous weapon for accessing reality.
By opting to rely only on his perception, Akintunde-Johnson, quite understandably, wants to free himself from the burden of facts and even truth, making it easy for his subjective senses to be substituted for even common sense.

The first victim of Akintunde-Johnson’s perception was Owelle Rochas Okorocha, whom he appeared to have used merely as target practice. On January 15, it was Dr. Bukola Saraki’s turn to be picked off. The article on Saraki was vintage Femi Akintunde-Johnson of the FAME magazine. He made no room for decency or common sense. He separated no facts from fiction.
Half-truth were mixed with bare-faced lies. Conspiracies met with conjectures, and matters that had long been dismissed by competent courts were exhumed and given a new breath of life. But that is the way of rumour mongers and charlatans, not of a professional journalist.

THISDAY is a respectable newspaper. And one can understand why Akintunde-Johnson would require such a credible platform to launder a journalism career defined by a lifetime of scandal mongering. But he needs to be made to understand that the rules are different. Fairness and objective are hallmarks of real journalism that has made THISDAY the newspaper that it is. Career refugees like Akintunde-Johnson must not be allowed to do dirt on the hard-earned reputation of that newspaper.
After reading the article on Saraki, one is forced to reassess Akintunde-Johnson’s real motives in assigning himself the task of reviewing presidential aspirants ahead of 2023, because it was quite clear that his intention was not to help his readers to gain a rounded and robust understanding of each of the aspirants as we originally assumed.

Concluding his introductory article of January 15, he wrote: “We will also appreciate your feedback afterwards, with equal openness and fairness.” This writer must be very bold indeed; to demand fairness when he was willing to give none. If you rely solely on your perception to profile an individual, why shouldn’t the same gestures be extended to you ? Why should you expect fairness?
His article on Saraki drips of bias, of prejudice, of conspiracy and of crass hatred. Based on this article, and what we have heard people say about him, our perception is that Akintunde-Johnson is only out to do someone’s hatchet job, that he is a hired character assassin on a mission to clear the political field for his master. Like he wrote himself, it does not matter if this is “half-truth or holy grail”, it is our perception. And if we must accept his characterization of Dr. Saraki based on his “perception”, he also should be willing to accept this perception of himself as a journalistic scoundrel. That is the definition of fairness, isn’t it?

How can anyone who understands fairness accuse Dr. Saraki of nepotism on one hand, because he was Governor when his sister was a Senator and on the other hand accuse him of treachery because he stood against his sister succeeding him as Governor? If Bukola Saraki had supported his family to make his sister succeed him as governor in 2011, certainly this same writer would have deployed the same as evidence of nepotism and why he is not fit to be president.

To take that kind of principled opposition against your own family; to stand for what is right; to say “No, it is morally indefensible for my own sister to take over from me after eight years in government”; to refuse to yield in the face of pressure; this requires absolute courage, the kind of courage of conviction that is required to lead a country.

Perhaps, more than ever before, the President that Nigeria needs in 2023 is a president who believes in Nigeria and who has the political and social capacity to rally the citizens to believe in Nigeria again. This is what Dr. Saraki represents. His presidential aspiration is based on an instinctive conviction that Nigeria has a huge potential for greatness. He believes that more than even our much celebrated natural endowments, our greatest asset is the people of Nigeria, especially the youths. He believes that the greatest investments any nation can make is in its youth population.

One thing that even his worst detractors cannot deny is Dr. Saraki’s technical capacity and political competence. But beyond this, he is one of the few political leaders in this country who is at home in all parts of the country. In our quest to build a truly unified nation where everyone has a sense of belonging, this is one great attribute that cannot be overlooked.
Dr. Saraki wants to be president because he understands the logic and language of the private sector and what is required to grow the economy. Moreover, his track records as the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and the National Assembly would readily attest to his capacity to rally the political elite and achieve a consensus around a political agenda for the development of the country.

One would expect that anyone interested in profiling a presidential aspirant at this moment of great economic and political crisis in the country would focus on these issues rather than gossips, hearsay and conspiracies. Is Dr. Saraki perfect? Of course not! But who is? However, what he cannot be faulted for is his great capacity and his unwavering belief in Nigeria. Certainly, these attributes cannot be interrogated through a writer’s distorted perception.

– Sulaimon Bala Idris works with the Abubakar Bukola Saraki Media Office, Abuja.