Michael Weiss on Tinubu: Is This White Journalist Dividing Us with His Whiteness?
Michael Weiss of The Daily Beast, an American
online opinion and news outlet known for its peculiar style of
reporting, is generally known as a journalist who focuses on
developments in the Middle East and Russia but now has suddenly ventured
into Nigeria, the most populous black nation in the world and one with
an emerging democracy.
Michael Weiss.
At a time when this black nation and its people
are in a joyful mood for growing a little higher as a democracy in a
broadly peaceful election, Weiss comes from out of nowhere, or all the
way from the Euro-American world, where he would submit himself as a
middleman between warring leaderships of the two main political parties
in Nigeria.
At a time when our young nation is in its
first-ever peaceful political transition and is fully shifting into a
new presidency, Weiss would suddenly open up our society into a
provoking mode by dredging up an old-aged allegation against Bola
Tinubu, one of the leaders of Nigeria's main oppositional party in the
21st century.
Weiss, all the way from America, would plunge
himself into the domestic affairs in Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria in
particular, focusing on a more than twenty-year-old drug-related
accusation against Tinubu which is widely known by the people, and for
which there was no evidence of indictment or conviction.
The people of Nigeria remain aware that in the
last few days a war of words has passed between Tinubu and Buruji
Kashamu, a leader of the outgoing political party, who has been
reportedly indicted for drug charges and possibly facing extradition to
the United States in the coming weeks or months.
If Weiss was really concerned about the social
realities facing the leadership in Africa, Nigeria especially, it would
have been more helpful if six to twelve months ago; he had raised issues
regarding the impact of the social behaviour of leaders as they relate
to the national leadership, especially leaders such as Tinubu or even
Buruji.
Weiss, by his action of injecting himself into
native matters like what we have here, all too obviously personifies
what we know from American history.
Malcolm X, at one time a prominent African
America leader, in a speech in New York on April 8, 1964, stated “The
greatest weapon that the colonial powers have used in the past against
our people has always been divide-and-conquer…is the same strategy as
that which was used in the past (to)
divide…plays one Negro leader against the
other… plays one Negro organization against the other… makes us think we
have different objectives…”
Following the same line of thinking several years later, we have the words
by Bill Cosby, an African American stand-up comedian, as reported in the The Atlantic Newspaper in May 2008, stated,
“We are not a pitiful race of people. We are a
bright race, who can move with the best. But we are in a new time…I’m
tired of losing to white people…”
There is no attempt to portray Weiss as a racist or a racially divisive individual,
but what is clear is that if he wants to
comment on our democratic and leadership challenges, his focus should be
more on how to take positive steps towards
building up to a strong democratic country.
Tinubu, like every one of us, has his personal
ups and downs. Weiss needs to be educated about the man called Tinubu,
who, in the eyes of many open-minded Nigerians, will be counted as one
of those leaders who recently paved the way for entry into a true
democracy. He is that man who was a founding member of the pro-democracy
National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), which organized support for the
restoration of democracy and recognition of the June 12 results, and
subsequently went into exile in 1994, only to return back to the country
in 1998 after the death of military autocrat, Sani Abacha.
Tinubu would subsequently serve as a democratic
Governor from 1999 to 2007 and to this day serves as a national leader
of the All Progressive Congress, along with Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and
Yemi Osibajo, incoming President and Vice-President respectively. They
are jointly raising the spirit of democracy in our nation.
As for Weiss, we have one message for him.
What we need more of at this time are ideals
and values to help us become a forward-looking democracy and less of the
psychology of divide-and-conquer.
Dr. John Egbeazien Oshodi is a
Forensic/Clinical Psychologist, a Consultant in National Psychology, and
a former Secretary-General of the Nigeria Psychological Association.
Jos5930458@aol.com
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