Synagogue Building CollapseThe Truth About T.B. Joshua's 'Bribe' - Another Journalist Explains
Ateba penned down a though provoking opinion on the issue which has caused lots of controversy since it got out
A journalist with PM News, Simon Ateba
has spoken out about the audio recording of T.B. Joshua and some
journalist which was leaked by Nicholas Ibekwe, a reporter who was
present at the meeting.
Ateba penned down a though provoking opinion on the issue which has caused lots of controversy since it got out.
Here is what he said:
People
have been asking me, “Simon , were you at that press conference on 14
September where Prophet T.B. Joshua allegedly gave N50,000 to
journalists to write a positive story on the building collapse that
killed many people?”, my answer is always the same.
I
was not at that event, I do not know if he gave a bribe, I do not know
if it was N50,000, and cannot comment on it. But I do not feel better or
more righteous in any way than those who might have collected anything,
if money was given.
The truth is this, as long
as journalists in Nigeria are not paid for months or are given irregular
crummy salaries, as long as they are not insured, as long as publishers
pocket all the corrupt money they get in the forms of adverts or
special reports from corrupt politicians, and as long as Nigerians
refuse to spend their money on newspapers, which push publishers to
solicit money from politicians who have pocketed everything, many
journalists will continue to accept gifts, bribes or whatever you call
it.
I understand that foreign journalists at the
event and a Nigerian journalist allegedly rejected the money. I am happy
they allegedly did and that’s where the profession should be. That’s
the ideal we all want. But that’s not where we are. Most journalists in
Nigeria have no insurance. Many newspapers in Nigeria have not paid
their reporters for months, some even a year, including those newspapers
that are even getting those corrupt advert money from government
officials.
A CNN, Reuters, Associated Press or
BBC journalist will surely die if he was not paid for one year, had no
insurance, no house to live in, and no friend to support him. And many
former journalists who are now successful and even the society at large,
are very wicked. They see a journalist who is striving to stand out,
who wants to be objective and unbiased, they watch him as life
challenges crush him to death. No car, no house, no savings, nothing to
show for 20 years of work. And when such a journalist accepts a gift,
the same society says, look at him, he’s corrupt. He’s biased. He’s
unethical.
But the same society screaming does
not buy newspapers, they prefer to spend all their money on drinks,
cigarettes, clothes, bags and cars but demand and expect higher
standards from the media. So I am sorry to say it won’t happen.
The
society is hypocritical and the media industry is sick. But until
there’s a shift, nothing will change. You can say these are just
excuses. You may even add that the media should be our conscience, and
only truth is acceptable. You will be passing a superficial judgement,
because you cannot just should look at corruption in the media without
understanding why the rot is so deep and the change so hard. You must
understand that it is the product of a failed society.
A
corrupt government, a corrupt judiciary, a corrupt police force, a
corrupt army, a corrupt civil society, a corrupt banking and financial
system, a corrupt educational system, a corrupt political system, in
summary, it is the product of a failed country that does nothing when
journalists are not paid for months or are left to wallow in poverty
after serving their nations for 20 years.
I used
to know a journalist who passed on after working for his company for
many years in Lagos, and his wife was given only one month salary to
take care of herself and their kids. I guess, this, certainly, is not
the future we all envisaged after graduating with a First Class at the
University. My rambling is getting too long.
Let
me summarise. The journalist who leaked the alleged bribery to the
public claimed that he did so because journalists were too soft on
Prophet T.B. Joshua and were not reporting the truth.
Hear
him: “I observed that Nigerian media were being too gentle on TB
Joshua despite the glaring irregularities surrounding the collapse. I
read more reports about the “hovering craft” and how Boko Haram could
have sabotaged the building. “Very little was reported about the
structural defects of the building.
Not much was
written about the fact that the building originally had 2 floors and was
being illegally refurbished with 4 additional floors when it collapsed.
We didn’t come hard on the Synagogue Church goons who attacked first
responders. We didn’t highlight the fact that many of those that
perished could have been saved if NEMA officials weren’t barred from the
site for almost three days! We didn’t make an issue of the fact that
our colleagues who had gone to report the collapsed building were
molested on Saturday.”Of course, you all know that these are lies.
What he’s saying is not factual. Or maybe he did not read reporting of the building collapse enough.
On
15 September, the day after the alleged bribe was given to journalists,
P.M.NEWS published this
editorial: http://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2014/09/15/the-synagogue-tragedy/
. You can read it yourself and let me know if it looked like they were
being soft on T.B. Joshua or hiding the facts.
The
20-year old newspaper said in that editorial: “Perhaps most of the
dead victims would have been rescued alive if the church staff and
people perceived as thugs did not prevent officials of the National
Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, from carrying out rescue operations
immediately the building crumbled. Lagos State Governor, Babatunde
Fashola, had to intervene by visitting the scene of the disaster and
ordering the church staff to leave the site before rescue work could
start in earnest.”
The newspaper concluded it
editorial by saying: “We must go beyond speculation to serious
investigation to unravel the facts and prevent future tragedies of this
magnitude. Those who are found wanting should be made to face the full
wrath of the law.” Does that look like a newspaper trying to protect
T.B. Joshua or that did not care about the dead?Of course not.
But
that was not all. the same day, the cover story of P.M.NEWS in Lagos
read: “Boko Haram Attack: Nigerians Blast T.B. Joshua”. The lead or the
first paragraph of that story read: “Nigerians have blasted Prophet
T.B. Joshua of the Synagogue Church of All Nations for claiming that
Boko Islamist sect might have brought down a six-storey building in his
church that has killed more than 40 people.”That front page story was
published on 15 September. Does it look like people who were buying the
story of a jet hovering over the building before it came down? These
examples were just from P.M.NEWS.
It was the same
thing for The Punch, The Nation, Vanguard, The Sun, ThisDay, Tribune,
The New Telegraph, TheNews Magazine, and even TVC and Channels TV, as
well as other television and radio stations.So it is not factual to say
that Nigerian journalists were being soft on T.B. Joshua or were hiding
the facts. It is simply a lie.
If Nigerian
journalists collected the money, they did so because of a sick industry,
a failed state and the reasons I mentioned above. But the money
certainly did not change the facts. And we all knew the facts even
before the audio was leaked last week.
One thing
I can say is that until investigation is conducted and concluded, no
one can claim to know exactly what led to the building collapse. It
will just be ranting, and rambling that lead to semantic noise but
nothing evidential or concrete.
I can say more, and go on and on, but for now, it’s time to mourn the dead. May their souls rest in peace.
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