The present circumstances in the Nigerian polity has
elicited a lot of mockery for our own home-made
'God's own country'. Starting from the irresponsible
mockery of the presumed frail health of President
Umaru Yaradua, the hide-and-seek game of Senator
Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, and the numerous brazen
battles of the reticent senator. And then came the
all-time dominant issue of World food crisis, rising
cost of petroleum products and the concomitant
Niger-Delta debacle. The one that rattled minds was
the irresponsible sale (or privatisation) of a
General Hospital in Abuja. While in other developing
countries like Trinidad and Tobago, Health care is
exclusively free to a great extent and the Nigerian
doctors are invaluable in the endurance of their
healthcare. Back home, the only means of primary
health care of a locality was disposed on the altar
of the flimsiest reason ever.
The health of the Nigerian president had come into
focus in the recent times, and the media,
irresponsibly made it an issue for commercial
benefits. The way some media houses went about the
discourse on the President's health was totally
unethical and reckless. While I agree that the
leader of a country owes the country that obligation
of an accurate information about their health ,the
press should have some responsibilities not to play
God in it's bid to make sales.
With the celebration of World Communication day, the
media practitioners should re-evaluate the
conscience of their pivotal role in information
dissemination. According to the Pope's message to
the media on this occasion, Humanity is at
crossroads today because the basic instrument of
social communication has been exploited for
indiscriminate self-promotion and has finally ended
up in the hands of those who use them to manipulate
consciences. Today, the media's role seems
increasingly to claim, not just to represent reality
but to determine it, owing to the power and the
force of suggestion that it possesses.
It is clear that in certain situations of our
national events, the media has been used, not for
proper purpose of disseminating information but to
"create" events. This dangerous change in function
has been antithetical to the basic ethos of ethical
journalism. When the Media loses its ethical
cybernetics and eludes societal control, it ends up
no longer taking into account the centrality and
inviolable dignity of the human persons, as a result
it seeks exercising a negative influence on the
people's consciences and choices and ultimately
conditions their freedom and very existential
issues.
I am persuaded to think that with this 42nd World
day of Communication, the Nigerian media should do a
soul-searching to chastise itself of such
western-clone mindset of information dissemination.
In the case of the disposition to the President's
health issue, the media did not demonstrate
compassion, love and sympathy in whatever plight the
President was going through. At the end of the day,
even if the President erred by not telling the
Nation the nature of his sickness, the media did not
help matters, rather it played God in it's
assessment of the indisposition of the amiable
President.
As the events unfold, I insist that the President
needs more prayers than criticism, much sympathy
than cruelty as he takes the nation to a greater
height along this presumed path of abject
indisposition and frailty.
Years ago I was forced to study this play by Samuel
Beckett, and as a high school teen I found it
incredibly frustrating and yet something about it
stuck in my mind. I felt a sense of intense futility
and cyclic logic of being lost in a labyrinth of
despair and hopelessness or more to the point a
hopeless hope. "Does hope spring eternal?"
I wanted to discuss with others their experiences
with this play and how it made them feel. What
impact this work has had on their lives. At the end
of the day, I discovered that everybody waits for
Godot, it is that singular Hope that keeps us moving
Dr Anachuna Anthony
A Nigerian doctor based in Trinidad and Tobago
