All these and more are the reasons why not a few Nigerians were
confounded when Dr. Reuben Abati, sizzling columnist and erstwhile
chairman of Editorial Board of The Guardian Newspapers, accepted to
serve as Senior Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President
Jonathan. Many of Abati’s dyed-in-the-wool fans wondered how a prolific
critic like their man would want to imprison his pen and imperil his
hard-earned reputation in the ever-spiking political voltage of the Aso
Rock Presidential Villa.
However, one and a half years down the line, Abati, who holds a PhD
in Dramatic Literature, Theory and Criticism from the University of
Ibadan, has dispelled all fears, as he continues to soar on the job.
Stating that there is no fundamental difference between his beat as a
journalist and his current beat as the president’s mouthpiece, he
declares: “I am glad that I took the assignment.”
Although he admits the job has its peculiar challenges, there has
never been a time he felt like throwing in the towel. “I have never felt
like taking a walk,” he continues. “You can’t go to the river and you
are afraid of cold. Once you are in the river, you know that you are
inside water and you can catch cold. And you must be ready to swim
because if you don’t swim, you will sink. I have never thought of
walking away. I have taken the assignment and, as I told you at the
beginning, when I look back, I am glad that I took the assignment.”
Well, as they say, the taste of the pudding is in the eating. Please, enjoy the full interview.
When you were called to take up this job, what was the working of your mind?
You will recall that I was invited by President Jonathan to serve
in his government at a special moment in the Nigerian history and that
special moment has to do with the emergence of President Jonathan
himself. It’s special because, one, it is the first time a minority will
be president over Nigeria. It’s the first time a PhD holder will be
president of Nigeria. It was the first time an election would be
conducted and everybody, locally and internationally, will adjudge the
election to be free and fair. It was the first time that Nigerians
generally really felt that ‘yes, something momentous has happened in
Nigeria’. And on the face of every Nigerian, you could see hope. You
could see overwhelming support, you could see overwhelming goodwill. And
when I went for the invitation, I considered it a great privilege to
have been invited to be part of this great wind of change in Nigerian
history and to work for a man who is clearly a man of history.
Whatever happens, President Jonathan will always be remembered as a
very significant man of history. His coming to power was on a platform
of great hope. He represents, if you wish, the Nigerian Dream. He
doesn’t come from any wealthy background; he has never been in the
military; he is not a rich man; he is a man that from whichever angle
you look at him, you see an image of yourself as an ordinary Nigerian
who wants to succeed. For the younger generation, he is a symbol of
success; for the older generation, he is a symbol of what is possible.
For all of us as a collective, he represents the fact that Nigeria can
really make progress and change is possible in our society. These were
the considerations. And looking back, I think it was a good decision to
have accepted the invitation.
Did you ever think that your job would be made easy by the
tremendous popularity of Jonathan’s ascendancy to power? By the fact
that the man was coming on the crest of history, by the fact that he was
soaring high on the crest of history…
First of all, I have never really worked in government at this
level, but as a public affairs commentator and analyst, I know also that
leadership is very complex, and that nations face different kind of
challenge at any particular time. So, I didn’t imagine that I was coming
into an arena where there would be no challenges. Definitely, running a
country is a very complex task; it’s very challenging, but so far so
good. I think whatever challenges we are facing in the last one and half
years, those challenges have strengthened all of us as Nigerians. And
for those of us who are privileged to work for the No 1 man, it’s been a
great learning opportunity and it has also been an opportunity to make
our own little contributions.
What have you learned so far from your principal?
One, the president’s humility, and everybody remarks upon this.
It’s a very humble man and working with a man like that and you see him
so humble, so accessible, you just learn that whatever position you may
be in life, you must be yourself. He is president but all his friends
that he went to school with, they are still with him. If he travels and
he sees somebody, an old colleague, he would reach out to the person. He
would say, for instance, that guy was my colleague in NDDC, or OMPADEC
as it was then.
When he goes home in Otuoke, you need to be there, his entire
compound is filled up with cousins, ordinary people, secondary school
mates, etc. He would go to the village, from house to house, he would
see somebody he wants to greet. He would greet the person. The person
would crack jokes with him and he would respond. Then he would tell us
he was my classmate in secondary school. And you could see the
excitement. And for a man to be in that high position and to still be so
humble, it’s amazing.
Are sure there is no issue of dual personality here-humble and soft as jelly on the outside, then hard as steel on the inside…
(Cuts in…) But if you see him, even in terms of his relationship
with the public, I don’t think anybody has ever described him as being
arrogant. The other thing that you will discover about him is that he
has a very strong character. He is very determined. It is not easy to
shake him. He is not easily rattled. But most people say he is weak;
they say he doesn’t have backbone. And I look at them and say ‘they
don’t know this man’. Because he is focused, he knows what he is doing,
he is determined and he is very optimistic. And above all, he is man who
believes in God.
Still on some people’s perception of the president as being weak,
the other day, his mentor, President Olusegun Obasanjo passed some
remarks about President Jonathan’s approach to the Boko Haram nuisance;
comparing the approach of the government to Boko Haram to how he handled
Odi. That comment elicited some commentaries, some fair, some not so
savoury. What’s your take on this?
Let me put it this way. We shouldn’t talk about weakness. It is
mater of difference in style and approach. The president himself had
already responded to that in a media chat. His response was not really a
response to President Obasanjo. If you look at the way that a question
was phrased, it was just an open question and he commented on it. But
when the media reported it, in contextualizing it, they made it look as
if he was responding to President Obasanjo. But the truth of the matter
is that there is no quarrel between the two leaders.
Are you sure?
President Obasanjo and President Jonathan have very good
relationship. Okay? But when you read, what is in the media, all kinds
of speculations, all kinds theories, all kinds of suppositions, I see
most of those things as an attempt by people to sensationalize the
relationship between the two leaders. I can tell you that there is no
quarrel between the two of them.
People were suggesting that Obasanjo was saying all he was
saying because they had parted ways, and he wouldn’t want support the
president for 2015…
(Cuts in…) President Jonathan has not even commented on 2015 in
terms of whether he wants to run or not; and we have been saying this
over and over again, that we consider the discussion of the 2015 general
elections at this moment premature and a distraction. President
Jonathan also responded to that in the media chat and he has done so
again and again. In that media chat, he made it clear that, ask me this
question again in 2014. But for now, Nigerians should just allow him to
concentrate on the assignment that he has been given. I think that is
clear enough. And he further offered explanations as to why he just
wants to concentrate on his assignment. But Nigerians would not let him
rest. Everybody is just talking about 2015. But he is focused on service
delivery.
If you were to write a personality profile on the
president, taking into consideration where you were before you got this
job and what you now know, what kind of a manager would you describe
President Jonathan to be?
I think he is hands-on. He pays attention to details. He encourages
teamwork and he is very clear as to the direction of his government and
what he wants to achieve. Now, some of those priorities may not yet
have fructified fully, but the things that people should know is that
service delivery, in a significance sense, is a process; and when those
things fructify, many of those people who are condemning now would see
that, indeed, this government is working hard. And you can already see
many of the results. When there was significant improvement in power
supply, we didn’t need to go and inform Nigerians.
We didn’t need to use any propaganda. Nigerians themselves started
talking about it. The things that the Ministry of Aviation is doing, we
are all living witnesses in this country. There was a time in our recent
history, when some airports were shut down for two to three years under
the guise that they were going to be renovated and rebuilt. Two years
later, those airports were reopened with nothing having been done on
them. But you can see what is happening in the aviation industry today.
The people who go to those airports are testifying to the great work
done in them.
Except that we have beautiful edifices now but no planes to fly…
Government is addressing that now. But people go to those places
and they feel more comfortable that an effort is being made. A lot more
would be done. To the question of the availability of aircraft,
government has already announced a bailout plan for the aviation
industry. There are also plans to start a national carrier. We used to
have a national carrier in this country. Now, government wants to do it
again, making use of the expertise and the creativity that is available
within the private sector. I think the private sector would be involved,
the existing airlines would be strengthened and if you check the
aviation industry, the aviation minister will be in a better position to
provide the details. In terms of facilities for air traffic
controllers, upgrading of the airports, a lot has been done.
Is there any particular leadership model that the president adopts in doing what he is doing?
I cannot speak for him in terms of who his heroes are but I know
that his favorite books are books on leaderships, particularly
biographies of other leaders, and then, what he calls development
politics or something. He has a phrase. I think its development
economics. He reads book on that. So, if you want to buy him books, buy
him biographies, buy him books on development economics and then books
on his field-science.
The man is still naturally a teacher, a scientist. Watch very well,
if at any time he has to discuss anything related to science, or
technology, he is very much at home. The things are still very fresh in
his head. Sometimes, he says ‘I wish I could go and teach’. I even
admire him for the fact that he is president but he is very conscious of
his background as a scholar and researcher and he still keeps in touch
with issues in his field. Sometimes, we joke with him that ‘Sir, you
can’t go back and teach.’ He is first and foremost a scholar and an
intellectual, a leader, a researcher.
When he sits at meetings, does he come across as a leader that allows plurality of opinion?
Oh yes. Discussions are usually very robust and people are free to
say their minds. He allows everybody to have a free say. He is not a
dictator. If there is any credit that Nigerians give him, it is that
this man is not a dictator. He is a team player; or rather he encourages
teamwork and at the end of the day, he synthesizes and then provides
the leadership that is required.
When you talk about reading, does he really have time to read?
He has time to read. I will tell you about his routine. In his
residence, he has a library. It has an office and he has books there.
And when he wakes up in the morning, the first thing he does is that he
monitors the media and then he reads the paper online. By the time I
arrive…
(I cut in…) He reads his papers by himself? It’s not as if
you read and then underscore the issues that should interest him for his
attention, like most chief executives do?
No, I don’t underline things for him. He reads newspapers himself
and he listens to AIT, NTA, Channels, and STV, and all those channels.
Before 8 a.m., he has gone through all the channels, watching the
headlines, newspaper reviews, discussion programmes, those ones that
come very early, he monitors them, he listens to them. By the time I sit
with him to do media briefing, we are just looking at the issues and
discussing them. So, you can’t go and tell him any lies.
And we don’t mark papers for him. We give him the papers. He reads
the papers himself. What we now do is to identify certain highlights and
when I sit with him, we just go through some of those issues together.
He is not a president who is waiting for you to read the papers on his
behalf, mark pages 1 and 2, or more, for his attention and bring them to
him. No! I have never done that. He reads newspapers himself, and, in
fact, if you are briefing him and you forget a particular issue, he
would be the one to remind you. And if you are misrepresenting the fact,
he will correct you because he has read it.
So that tells you that you have to be on your toes?
Yes, and that is important because he is not a man you can lie to.
Don’t forget he is an intellectual, he is a teacher, and he is coming
from the background of scholarship. So, reading is not strange to him.
If he has to go through the whole gamut before 8 a.m., that means he must have woken up by 6 a.m. or thereabout…
Yes.
That contradicts what we hear outside that the president doesn’t come to office until 12 noon.
Who is saying that? The man wakes up before 6 a.m., because by 6
a.m. he has to be at the Red Carpet; that is where they do the morning
devotion.
In the Chapel?
In the residence. They use the Red Carpet for early morning
devotion. He worships there. He has his early morning prayer there. When
he finishes the prayer, he goes on to monitor the news. By then, we
would have brought the newspapers. The papers get to him very early. So,
he would have monitored the news. Later, not more than 9:30 a.m., he
comes out. Before 10 a.m., he is in the office, and he could be in the
office till very late. So, if anybody is telling you that he comes to
work at 2 p.m., that is a lie. In fact, on many occasions, by the time, I
will get to his residence, they would say ‘Oga is in the office’. And
many of us would start running to catch up because sometimes he would go
there by 8 a.m., and by the time we are arriving, following the
schedule that we know, we would hear that he has gone to the office. We
would quickly rush in. Because if your Oga is in the office before you,
it means that…
(I cut in…) On the average, on a daily basis, how many hours do you spend with the president?
I have never counted the hours; it depends on what we are doing. If
there are programmes, yes, I will be there for as long as I’m needed.
Do you attend all assignments that concern you or all the assignments?
You know we are presidential aides. We are always available. It’s
not just a case of other people having their own assignments. I have
never taken time to count it in terms of hours. But the thing is you are
available, if your attention is needed for anything, you can be
summoned.
Dr. Abati, I am trying to use you as a prism to look at the
president. That is why I am talking about the hours, the kind of food
he eats, and so on.
I just told you when he wakes up, and very early he is in the office. Once he goes to the office, we are also in the office.
Have you ever eaten with him?
It’s normal now if you are a presidential aide. He doesn’t eat alone. And I have written an article about what he eats.
I missed the article. What is his favourite food?
I think I have written about it. And he too likes to crack jokes.
You know, he read an article once and he came to report back to us that
he just read a piece somewhere and maybe somebody said something that
“if you go to the Villa, the President consumes a whole turkey at every
meal. He said why somebody would write that. Is it possible for one
human being to sit down and consume one whole turkey in the morning and
another one in the afternoon and another in the evening? The president
eats very simple food. What do I consider his favourite foods? Pepper
soup, yam, boiled plantain.
He is not a salad person? He doesn’t do salad and all those stuffs?
When do they even serve salads? Maybe on Sunday afternoon, because
when he leaves church and goes home, some guests may come back home with
him and he will have lunch with them. And what does he eat? Rice. In
fact, many Nigerians eat better food in their homes than the president.
That is subjective.
What is special in pepper soup, yam and boiled plantain and stew and maybe rice?
Like in the White House where President Obama brews his beer, does our president drink beer in the Villa?
He doesn’t drink there.
What does he drink?
Water.
Ordinary water, no alcohol?
Maybe I have seen him once or twice at a function taste wine, not
more than that. He doesn’t drink. But when you hear people, they will
say, they are drinking in the Villa.
What are the challenges you face managing this president?
Just this kind of thing that is happening. You have asked me
whether we brew beer in the Villa. You have asked whether he drinks. You
have asked what he eats, and I know where you are coming from, because
some people go out there and say if you see what they eat in the villa…
Somebody called me this morning, he said he saw somebody on the TV, the
person has packed so much weight because he is in government. He said
they just go there to go and eat food. I said no, it is not like that.
So, the main challenge would be this kind of misrepresentations. People
making up stories. I think that this also is part of the fact that we
live in an information age. It is very easy in this information age, and
with the phenomenal impact of the Internet, for you to tarnish
anybody’s image. You can just say anything and the thing will go viral
on the Internet in seconds. And Nigerians like to believe the worst
about those who are leading them.
And many of those things, I can tell you, are not true. And when
you read those things, you feel really pained because you know that this
thing that this person has written is not true. Or sometimes when there
is a fraction of the truth there, the thing has been twisted, sometimes
to serve political ends. Don’t forget that one of the major challenges
we are facing under this administration is that, for some members of the
opposition, it is as if the election is not yet over. One and half
years later, it is as if there is still a contestation over who is
president. There are persons who believe that they must work very hard
to discredit this administration so that the president would not even
think of 2015 at all, and the battle is at the level of information. So,
people throw up all kinds of negative things out there and we are also
always trying to clean up those things they throw out. It is a major
competition. It’s a perpetual one.
Talking about clean up, how do you decide on what to respond to as the president’s aide on media and publicity?
For me, there is so much out there, people say things and all that
but the responsibility of my office also is, as the president’s
spokesman, I really cannot descend low. How do I put this? There are
certain things I cannot do, because if I say certain things or respond
to certain things, it will be immediately credited to the president and
that institution is a very high institution. So, what is important at
all times is the dignity of that office. The president cannot engage
people in a shouting match. So, most of the time, I try to just offer
explanation, I try to provide correct information, clarify things to
journalists. Even when I see that what has been said has been twisted, I
try to provide more explanations. But there have been occasions in the
more than one year that I have been here that I have had to also to take
people on frontally.
Colleagues?
Either colleagues or the opposition, because when you see that
these people are just lying and being mischievous as a human being, it
touches you and you feel compelled to respond to them. But it is not a
thing that my office can do on a daily basis, because to do that, it
would seem as if the president is engaging everybody in a shouting
match. But when opportunities as this arise, and issues come up, I use
this kind of opportunity to clarify certain issues. I believe that
Nigerians would get to know the truth and know that most of the
criticisms are undeserved and that those who try to make it their
business to drag the president and attack his person are being unfair to
him.
What has been the most traumatic experience you have had on
this job, an experience that you feel like throwing in the towel and
walk away?
No, I have never felt like taking a walk. You can’t go to the river
and you are afraid of cold. Once you are in the river, you know that
you are inside water and you can catch cold. And you must be ready to
swim because if you don’t swim, you will sink. I have never thought of
walking away. I have taken the assignment and, as I told you at the
beginning, when I look back, I am glad that I took the assignment.
There must have been moments of frustration since you came into this office. Tell me about them.
Like any human being, on any job at all, there would be moments of
depression. Maybe people annoy you or people are trying to undermine
you, especially given the peculiar nature of this job where everybody
anywhere thinks he’s a media expert. They all know how you should do
your job. Even the cleaner, who has a relation who is just a reporter in
one remote publication, would tell the media adviser what he should do.
They are all more knowledgeable than the man who has been given the
job. When I came newly that used to bother me lot. You see all kinds of
characters pretending to know the job and offering advices. Some of them
would even go out of their way to say things that they know nothing
about. You get over things like that. You take it in your strides. This
is part of the job. It used to bother me at that initial stage. It
doesn’t bother me anymore.
How about your primary constituency, your media colleagues?
How do you now evaluate that constituency? You have been there, you are
now on the inside of the other side. From your experience so far, how
do you evaluate that constituency?
I don’t think the time has come for me to be evaluating the media
institution. I think these are still my colleagues, we work together.
This is my primary constituency. I know virtually everybody, but the
thing is that, sometimes when I see some of those headlines and I call
them. Or I see some of the columns and I complain, and I say, how could
you write this kind of thing? This thing is not true. Some of them will
say ‘if it were you, when you were here, it would have been worse’. I
say ‘what else do you want me to say?’ They say ‘oh, it’s even because
of you that the thing is mild like this.’ But I think that the media is
very important. It’s very strategic and being on both sides, you get to
learn a lot about how the media works and also about how government
functions.
What are the fresh lessons that you have learnt about how the Nigerian media works?
Please, allow me to leave that for my memoirs.
If you were to be on the outside looking in, don’t you
truly think you would do worse than you think some of your colleagues
are currently doing, knowing the Reuben Abati that we used to know?
I keep saying it’s not the other side; it’s the same side of the
street. In terms of objectives, what journalists want is also, in
principle, what politicians want, i.e. nation building and contribution
to the development of society. It’s essentially the same objectives.
It’s just that in terms of the roles, the media has been appointed the
watchdog. But if you take both institutions, you take government, you
take the media, it’s just that there are good and bad people in the
government, just as there are also good and bad people in the media
because we are all in the same society.
I really don’t think that the media, as an institution, can really
be holier than thou because it’s the same society, it’s the same
reflection. There are good people on this side, there are good people on
that side; there are bad people on this side, there are bad people on
that side. But all of us are united in one objective-to build Nigeria,
to get things right, to improve our country and I think that is what is
important. I think that at that level, both government and media can
work together effectively because these are two very strategic
institutions. And if you have been on both sides, you will be in a
position to see what the challenges are on both sides. But I think the
residue of it all is the media and government working together, focused
on that principle of nation building and national progress.
When Dr. Reuben Abati finishes this tour of duty, do you
think your pen would be as sharp as it used to be before you came on to
this job?
I can assure you my pen is still very sharp.
Would you be able to write some of those things you were writing before you took this job?
I consider myself even better informed now. Because there are
things that I see in the papers, these days, and I just say, well, this
person is writing because that is the way he feels. But, maybe, if he
has information, the article will be more enriched. And you can see some
of the people who had been in government who now write for the media.
When you see what they write, you will see that in terms of content, in
terms of analysis, they have something extra to offer. This is not just
an angry citizen, fulminating.
This is somebody who has been here, who has been there, and who is
back, somebody who has seen the issue from different sides. And you can
just take a few examples if you look at what they write, you will see
that there is that difference. Because, if you have been in government,
you have watched the processes, you have attended the meetings, you will
have a better understanding. That is what I mean that when you write
from that position of knowledge, the commentary will even be more
informed. So, I don’t think there is any problem about my being able to
write in the future.
When you take up a job like this, you become like a gold
fish. There is no hiding place for you. So, how much of your privacy
have you had to sacrifice?
What I try to do is that I try to adjust my lifestyle particularly
because the work I am doing is a very sensitive one. I used to attend
parties a lot. Oh, I love parties. In a day I could go to as many as
possible. Of course, you know Lagos now. There is always a party next
door. I used to go to nightclubs occasionally although by the time I
came back I had reduced that a bit. But with this kind of job, I cannot
do that. You don’t want a presidential spokesman that people see at
pepper soup joints all over the place.
You don’t want to see a presidential spokesman who attends Owambe
parties every other day. Also, you can’t socialize that much, going from
house to house and talking all over the place. The job is sensitive. It
calls for restraint. It calls for a lot of discipline. And every day I
know that at the end of the day when this assignment is over, the only
person that Nigerians will call to account is President Jonathan. He is
the president. He is the man they voted for. Nobody is going to remember
any spokesman. Nobody is going to remember any other official.
It’s President Jonathan they would invite to come and explain what
he did when he was president. He is the one who would be right there at
the centre page of history book. So, those of us who work for him also
have the responsibility to be careful. So, as much as possible I try to
be careful so that I don’t say anything or get into situations that can
detract from the dignity of the office that I work for. That is the main
restraining factor.
How has this job impacted on your family life?
As presidential aide, we are always with the president. We really
don’t have much time for the family. Even the president himself, how
much time does he have for family? He is always busy. Sometimes, you
will say I haven’t seen my children. We would come back from a trip or
we would go somewhere, you would say I have to go and see my children,
just give me few minutes. You dash there, go and see them just to make
sure that they have not gone to bed before you arrive, and you would
come back immediately. But if you say let me go and greet my mother. And
those moments are usually very touching for me.
It is very touching for me when I see the president, with his tough
job, squeezing out time to attend to family issues and people will
still bring other issues to him. Yet, he will squeeze out time to attend
to every one of those issues. It’s a lot of hard work to even have time
for family. And those of us who work for him, we know that, working for
Nigeria, we are making a sacrifice.
It’s for a season. And if you see the boss making such a huge a
sacrifice, who are you, his aide, to say you can’t make a sacrifice. And
the president shows perfect understanding of the situation. He meets
with us regularly and he says ‘I know you people. I know it’s tough for
you. But, let’s work together; let’s make sure we do our very best.’
What inspires most of us is that he is an optimist, and he has absolute
faith in God. And I am convinced that at the end of the day, this would
have been a very good job.
Your two columns in The Guardian, Reuben Abati on Friday and Reuben Abati on Sundays had a huge followership. Do you miss them?
I miss writing on a daily basis. That was what I did for years.
That was my major-to think and write and put things together, to edit
materials and give lectures. But the routine here is different. So, I
miss that part. In fact, there will be events that happen and I will see
a column idea and I will say ‘O my God, how I wish I can just put these
things together’. I even have tighter deadlines now. But all these
things are in my head. But it’s all right. This is national assignment
and it’s a great privilege to have been invited to serve at this level.
When this tour of duty is over, if given another
opportunity that you should come and serve in the same capacity, would
you accept knowing what you know now?
Let us finish this tour of duty first. Tomorrow will take care of itself.
[Daily Sun]
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