The truth has got to be said: free advocate for land-grabbers

When shallow minded thieves are caught red-handed, they most often deny claims. Even in court they continue to plead innocent until “proven without reasonable doubt”.

But “thieves” come in various sizes, and at different dimensions. Their operative word is “lie”. We all do tell lies at one point or the other. We are humanly not infallible. But when a liar is exposed, he should own up to his misdeeds.

As a press officer in a consulting public relations firm for a major oil firm in Lagos some years back, there was an oil spill in one of our client’s drilling wells near a village. We were flown in a small helicopter big enough to carry only five of us to the site.

The decision after assessing the damage by four of the experts was to keep the accident hidden from the probing Nigerian press. I asked what would happen if an inquisitive reporter was on the beat for the story? One of the experts quickly said that: “That is why you are in the delegation Asong”. My recommendation was that we should tell the truth and apologize if the cat was let out of the bag.

Back to Lagos, the media planned to tell the truth was prepared and kept in the locker. A few days after, a reporter called to get confirmation that there had been an oil spill into the sea at Warri.The reply was yes, “we are having a press conference in the afternoon in time for the newspapers to go to press the next day with the true story”.

At the press conference, we explained the amenities the company had provided in the affected community such as pipe borne water, clinic and school. Indeed, the community was an integral part of the company and we apologised for the accident which was beyond our control. The company was forgiven and it maintained its good corporate image in the community.

But in a system where the argument of force and blackmail reign supreme and where thin gods want to bury the truth, they widen the credibility gap of the entire government. Those involved in the Fako land scandal whose names need not to be mentioned so as to give them some iota of credibility if they had admitted their errors, apologised and relinquished the land to their rightful owners. But they continue to grope from one blunder to the other to get the support of the public.

A governor denies in a newspaper interview that he owns no land impounded from the community. The next day, another newspaper comes out with a graphic site plan of an acre of land belonging to a man who had sworn he was not also eating the pudding of rotten tomatoes.

Then some small village chiefs on creeping knees in front of their administrative “patrons” make preposterous statement saying “newspapers have been bought over to drag the names of eminent personalities into mud.”

In that defence of the indefensible, bleeding with ignorance in the role of the fourth estate of the realm, the “auxiliaries of the administration” were instead doing more harm to their “imminent personalities”. They make themselves accomplices if the various commissions investigating the land scam find their “eminences” guilty. But for now they only stand accused of “grabbing land”.

CONAC and other anti-graft bodies will conclude their work and the people, to whom power is derived will know on what side of the law, the chiefs accusing newspapers of being bought over without saying who is buying; stand. But if I were to be a devil’s advocate for any of those implicated in the land scam, free of any legal fees, I would have advised them to return the land and apologise before the sword of justice strikes with all its excruciating pains.

POSTSCRIPT: “The fight against corruption will continue to be intensified, without discrimination and without regard for the social status or political leaning of those incriminated”- Paul Biya.