Dave Umahi vs Rufai Oseni: Failure of institutions and the resort to self-help

Rufai Oseni’s clash with Governor Umahi exposes institutional failure and sparks urgent debate on ethics, vigilantism, and the need for systemic reform

Since the Oseni/Umahi incident on Arise news, I’ve read different opinions on the incident.

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Many border on the ethics of the journalism profession, personal conduct and accountability in public office.

None has however linked the incident to the nation’s biggest challenge: the failure of institutions.

Which institutions for instance are responsible for punishing corrupt politicians (make no mistake, the issue is about corruption).

Let’s guess: The police, the Judiciary, EFCC, ICPC, Code of Conduct Bureu, etc.

Which ones haven’t the politicians emasculated or pocketed?

So you see why a Rufai Oseni, out of frustration may “take laws into his own hands” to deal with eering politicians lacking in sence enough to straggle on to the Arise Morning show ill-prepared.

He probably believes he’s evening the scores on behalf of the people.

However, we can not approbate and reprobate at the same time.

What’s wrong is wrong.

Imagine every professional stepping out of professional ethics guiding conduct of their professions to settle scores because the institutions that should act and arbitrate has failed to do so.

So it could be the politicians or any of the thousands of people who irritate us daily.

So rather than heal, the Nigerian doctor should subject an Umahi, for instance, to lethal injection to even the scores on the people’s behalf too.

Or the mechanic should tamper with the counsellor’s car breaks to pay him back for the potholes on local roads.

These attempts at self-help deliver nothing but chaos, and in the case of Rufai, sensationalism and cheap popularity.

It is also precisely one of the reasons why Nigeria jagajaga, to borrow the Nigerian coinage for chaos, which Idris Abdulkareem popularised.

What people ultimately remember is not the cost per kilometre, which they have a right to know, but “if you will just keep quiet,” or “you’re too small for me to report to the President” said in rude exchange.

If everyone were to use his/her “powers” to settle scores with politicians, the country would simply descend into more chaos (it’s already in enough chaos as it is).

It is presumtious and an overeach, to name it mildly, for Rufai to think that he can solve the country’s leadership and governance challenges by being crude and unproffessional in the name of holding politicians feet to the fire on a TV show.

That correction job belongs to the electorate, some of them, his viewers.

His job is to inform, elicit, elucidate, and clarify for the benefit of his viewers so that they may arrive at informed decisions.

His job is not to heckle, provoke, or conclude.

I can however conclude.

It is tempting for all of us to descend into the “Were la fi n wo were” (curing madness with madness) mode out of frustrations occasioned by failures of institutions in our dear country.

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However, as the Oseni/Umahi incident shows, we may gain temporarily advantages (as both parties tried to), but we solve no real problems.

Akinyemi Lofindipe