Osinbajo: Unraveling of Nigeria’s Most Overrated Vice President
Farooq A. Kperogi
Saturday, September 28, 2019
Osinbajo: Unraveling of Nigeria’s Most Overrated Vice President
School of Communication & Media
Kennesaw State University
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
Chimalum Nwankwo
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Victor Okafor
I beg to disagree substantially with Professor Farooq A. Kperogi’s “Osinbajo: Unraveling of Nigeria’s Most Overrated Vice President,” an article in which Kperogi criticized Vice President Osinbajo’s quest for corrective remedies for news reports that he deemed defamatory and injurious to his reputation. I have long felt that there tends to occur a ring of injustice in what has almost become an out-of-control manner in which public officials tend to be maligned in the public square within liberal democratic entities or entities that aspire to become truly liberal democratic polities. No doubt, if a public official abuses the public trust reposed in him or her by virtue of his/her office, fair criticism or outright condemnation of such abuses are warranted. But outrightly dishonest and false news reporting or commentaries against public officials ought to be viewed with disgust, to say the least. Let’s not forget that the mere fact of being a public official does not strive one of one’s fundamental human rights. In this regard, let’s remind ourselves of article 12 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary… attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such … attacks.”
Yes, we know that like all other categories of professional and non-professional groups, there exist both corrupt and non-corrupt and dedicated public officials. Journalism is a serious occupation, but a downside of the age of internet communication is that it allows for unmediated mass communication. Trained journalists, who usually study applicable media laws as part of their training, are less apt to engage in a freewheeling assault on the character of fellow human beings who happen to be rending one form of service to the public or the other than self-proclaimed journalists who tend to mis-use the unmediated internal media, such as social media, to malign others at will. The latter ought to be held accountable for their actions.
In the United States where both fair and unfair criticisms of public officials, have tended to benefit from what looks like an ever elastic judicial protection, genuine concerns have begun to emerge about excesses committed by unbridled penmanship against apparently defenseless public officials. For example, in February, this year, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas echoed this growing concern. As was reported in the media, `In Justice Thomas’s view, the First Amendment did nothing to limit the authority of states to protect the reputations of their citizens and leaders as they saw fit.’ Continuing, Justice Thomas contended that `When the First Amendment was ratified, … many states made it quite easy to sue for libel in civil actions and to prosecute libel as a crime. That was, he wrote, as it should be.’ Justice Thomas also noted that `We did not begin meddling in this area until 1964, nearly 175 years after the First Amendment was ratified,’ concluding that `The states are perfectly capable of striking an acceptable balance between encouraging robust public discourse and providing a meaningful remedy for reputational harm.’ I’m of the view that a remedy for what he considered to be a reputational harm done to him in recent times in certain sectors of the news and social media, is what Vice President Osinbajo is seeking to achieve.
Whatever one may say or think about how Osinbajo has discharged his duties as a vice-president, against the backdrop of an office whose functions depend largely upon the grace and latitude allowed or disallowed by the Office of the Executive President, one should not question his fundamental right to take all steps available to him to seek remedy when he believes that his reputation has been unfairly and falsely tarnished. Just put yourself in his shoes and ask whether you would ask for less if you became a victim of what you believe to be a malicious assault on your character, whether or not you are a public official. Again, being a public official does not stripe one of one’s humanity or one’s capacity to feel the pain of being maliciously attacked.
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
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Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
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Victor Okafor
I beg to disagree substantially with Professor Farooq A. Kperogi’s “Osinbajo: Unraveling of Nigeria’s Most Overrated Vice President,” an article in which Kperogi criticized Vice President Osinbajo’s quest for corrective remedies for news reports that he deemed defamatory and injurious to his reputation. I have long felt that there tends to occur a ring of injustice in what has almost become an out-of-control manner in which public officials tend to be maligned in the public square within liberal democratic entities or entities that aspire to become truly liberal democratic polities. No doubt, if a public official abuses the public trust reposed in him or her by virtue of his/her office, fair criticism or outright condemnation of such abuses are warranted. But outrightly dishonest and false news reporting or commentaries against public officials ought to be viewed with disgust, to say the least. Let’s not forget that the mere fact of being a public official does not stripe one of one’s fundamental human rights. In this regard, let’s remind ourselves of article 12 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary… attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such … attacks.”
Yes, we know that like all other categories of professional and non-professional groups, there exist both corrupt and non-corrupt and dedicated public officials. Journalism is a serious occupation, but a downside of the age of internet communication is that it allows for unmediated mass communication. Trained journalists, who usually study applicable media laws as part of their training, are less apt to engage in a freewheeling assault on the character of fellow human beings who happen to be rendering one form of service to the public or the other than self-proclaimed journalists who tend to mis-use the unmediated internal media, such as social media, to malign others at will. The latter ought to be held accountable for their actions.
In the United States where both fair and unfair criticisms of public officials, have tended to benefit from what looks like an ever elastic judicial protection, genuine concerns have begun to emerge about excesses committed by unbridled penmanship against apparently defenseless public officials. For example, in February, this year, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas echoed this growing concern. As was reported in the media, `In Justice Thomas’s view, the First Amendment did nothing to limit the authority of states to protect the reputations of their citizens and leaders as they saw fit.’ Continuing, Justice Thomas contended that `When the First Amendment was ratified, … many states made it quite easy to sue for libel in civil actions and to prosecute libel as a crime. That was, he wrote, as it should be.’ Justice Thomas also noted that `We did not begin meddling in this area until 1964, nearly 175 years after the First Amendment was ratified,’ concluding that `The states are perfectly capable of striking an acceptable balance between encouraging robust public discourse and providing a meaningful remedy for reputational harm.’ I’m of the view that a remedy for what he considered to be a reputational harm done to him in recent times in certain sectors of the news and social media, is what Vice President Osinbajo is seeking to achieve.
Whatever one may say or think about how Osinbajo has discharged his duties as a vice-president, against the backdrop of an office whose functions depend largely upon the grace and latitude allowed or disallowed by the Office of the Executive President, one should not question his fundamental right to take all steps available to him to seek remedy when he believes that his reputation has been unfairly and falsely tarnished. Just put yourself in his shoes and ask whether you would ask for less if you became a victim of what you believe to be a malicious assault on your character, whether or not you are a public official. Again, being a public official does not stripe one of one’s humanity or one’s capacity to feel the pain of being maliciously attacked.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/VI1PR04MB4493BBC116921F4134EC0355A6830%40VI1PR04MB4493.eurprd04.prod.outlook.com.