News Release: "FFK's Attack On Daily Trust Reporter, Totally Reprehensible"-NUJ

[Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM]

The Nigeria Union of Journalists- NUJ condemns the gangster-like outburst by Chief Femi Fani Kayode against the Cross River State Correspondent of the Daily Trust Newspaper, Eyo Charles who asked him a simple question which he felt was embarrassing...................... 

https://chidioparareports.blogspot.com/2020/08/news-release-ffks-attack-on-daily-trust.html

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Chidi Anthony Opara is a "Life Time Achievement" Awardee, Registered Freight Forwarder, Professional Fellow Of Institute Of Information Managerment, Africa, Poet and Publisher of PublicInformationProjects

[Obododimma Oha]

FFK

FORMAL STATEMENT ON THE ENCOUNTER WITH A RUDE JOURNALIST IN CALABAR, CROSS RIVERS STATE. 

During my tour of the South and after a long and successful press conference in Calabar, Cross Rivers state, a journalist put up his hand for the last question and said,

"Well we do not know who is bankrolling you".

This is not a question but an assertion and an insult. 

And if this insulting ASSERTION were made before Trump or OBJ I know how they would have reacted.

Below is my response and I have no apology to offer for it. 

The young man apologised to me during the press conference and sent his apologies to me after the conference. I have accepted his apologies in good faith and moved on. 

I have always had respect for journalists and I always will. Those of them that know me or have worked with or for me over the last 30 years can attest to that. 

However there is a distinction between asking a question and offering a gratuitous insult . 

This is all the more so when it is clear that the assertion was sponsored  and engineered by my political enemies who wanted to use the young man to insult and embarrass me and question my integrity. Well they got more than they bargained for. 

I repeat this was not a question but an assertion and an insult and I will not accept that from any man born of woman. Thank you.

ADDENDUM: 

Permit me to add the following to my earlier statement. I have taken note of the report by Daily Trust on the incident. The content is false. I didn't send any of my security men to threaten their reporter.

I only reprimanded him for a premeditated plan to embarrass me and he apologised thereafter. That was all.

This is not a battle between me and the esteemed Nigerian journalists who respect the ethics of the noble profession.

 I have always been and will always be a friend to journalists and a champion of freedom of speech. What I will not accept are brazen insults from an  individual in the name of journalism. 

The assertion or assumption that I am being bankrolled by anyone is deeply insulting. 

Finally to the NUJ I say you have got me completely wrong. It would have been better if you had heard my own side of the story and established who was behind this whole incident and attempt to embarrass me, who paid for it and how much they paid before going to press. Nevertheless I still hold you in high esteem.

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B.A.,First Class Honours (English & Literary Studies);
M.A., Ph.D. (English Language);
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Professor of Cultural Semiotics & Stylistics,
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University of Ibadan.

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[Obododimma Oha]

FFK's statement posted for us to have a fuller picture and reaction from both parties. Not to support any. 

OHA. 

On Wednesday, August 26, 2020, Obododimma Oha <obod...@gmail.com> wrote:

FFK

FORMAL STATEMENT ON THE ENCOUNTER WITH A RUDE JOURNALIST IN CALABAR, CROSS RIVERS STATE. 

During my tour of the South and after a long and successful press conference in Calabar, Cross Rivers state, a journalist put up his hand for the last question and said,

"Well we do not know who is bankrolling you".

This is not a question but an assertion and an insult. 

And if this insulting ASSERTION were made before Trump or OBJ I knoFw how they would have reacted.

[Biko Agozino]

FFK no chop breakfast? A hungry man is an angry man, Bob Marley. Try it and you will see how short your fuse will be the day you skip breakfast. They should have told him, Di Dia Mkpo or Wa Jeun, or Bia Rie Ihe, or Zo gechi abinchi, or just come chop.

I have a hypothesis that the violent attacks we see in the community are the side-effects of avoiding the Black Panthers Diet that Mandela followed throughout his life - adherence to breakfast.

I propose that we should set up breakfast kitchens in the community to serve free breakfast daily. My guess is that the journalist had breakfast of ogi yi akara or he would have yabbed oga FFK back: What do you mean by, 'Do you know who I am?' Go ask you mama. Akpaniko. Abasi mi Mbo.

Biko

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[Anthony Akinola]

Framed differently, the journalist in question would appear to have asked a legitimate

question. I myself would have wanted to know the essence of your tour of the South,

and the capacity in which you were making it.Once you have put yourself in the public

space,especially as a politician, all sorts of questions are bound to be thrown at you

by inquisitive journalists.

Regards,

Anthony Akinola

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[Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM]

You don't get "pissed" when you invite news reporters to talk about your activities, any questions can be asked,  Including: "are you with madam?", "did guys have sex this morning?", etc. 

What if this news conference was in Europe and "Play Boy" magazine reporter was there,  would he/she be expected to ask the same type of question a "Wall Street Journal" reporter would have asked? 

-Chidi Anthony Opara (CAO) 

[Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM]

"Instances of his indecorous behaviours is attributable to two factors; he is the scion of an illustrious public figure in Nigeria who literarily was born and fed with a silver spoon, and also because of the fawning, uncritical indulgence of our media which tends to accord undue relevance to persons who went to the type of schools FFK attended abroad.

FFK is fannying around in his family’s shadow and in the inferiority complex of our media who believe that Nigerians who attended Ivy League institutions in America and Oxbridge in the United Kingdom possess uncommon wisdom. It is what makes otherwise vacuous and spastic individuals of his ilk to bask in the public space with a dubious sense of entitlement, advertising their self-importance in the full knowledge that the Nigerian media will indulge them uncritically."--Daily Trust(Nigerian Newspaper).