I beg to disagree substantially with Professor Farooq A. Kperogi's "Osinbajo: Unraveling of Nigeria's Most Overrated Vice President," an article in which Kperogi criticized Vice President Osinbajo's quest for corrective remedies for news reports that he deemed defamatory and injurious to his reputation. I have long felt that there tends to occur a ring of injustice in what has almost become an out-of-control manner in which public officials tend to be maligned in the public square within liberal democratic entities or entities that aspire to become truly liberal democratic polities. No doubt, if a public official abuses the public trust reposed in him or her by virtue of his/her office, fair criticism or outright condemnation of such abuses are warranted. But outrightly dishonest and false news reporting or commentaries against public officials ought to be viewed with disgust, to say the least. Let's not forget that the mere fact of being a public official does not strive one of one's fundamental human rights. In this regard, let's remind ourselves of article 12 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary… attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such … attacks."
Yes, we know that like all other categories of professional and non-professional groups, there exist both corrupt and non-corrupt and dedicated public officials. Journalism is a serious occupation, but a downside of the age of internet communication is that it allows for unmediated mass communication. Trained journalists, who usually study applicable media laws as part of their training, are less apt to engage in a freewheeling assault on the character of fellow human beings who happen to be rending one form of service to the public or the other than self-proclaimed journalists who tend to mis-use the unmediated internal media, such as social media, to malign others at will. The latter ought to be held accountable for their actions.
In the United States where both fair and unfair criticisms of public officials, have tended to benefit from what looks like an ever elastic judicial protection, genuine concerns have begun to emerge about excesses committed by unbridled penmanship against apparently defenseless public officials. For example, in February, this year, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas echoed this growing concern. As was reported in the media, `In Justice Thomas's view, the First Amendment did nothing to limit the authority of states to protect the reputations of their citizens and leaders as they saw fit.' Continuing, Justice Thomas contended that `When the First Amendment was ratified, … many states made it quite easy to sue for libel in civil actions and to prosecute libel as a crime. That was, he wrote, as it should be.' Justice Thomas also noted that `We did not begin meddling in this area until 1964, nearly 175 years after the First Amendment was ratified,' concluding that `The states are perfectly capable of striking an acceptable balance between encouraging robust public discourse and providing a meaningful remedy for reputational harm.' I'm of the view that a remedy for what he considered to be a reputational harm done to him in recent times in certain sectors of the news and social media, is what Vice President Osinbajo is seeking to achieve.
Whatever one may say or think about how Osinbajo has discharged his duties as a vice-president, against the backdrop of an office whose functions depend largely upon the grace and latitude allowed or disallowed by the Office of the Executive President, one should not question his fundamental right to take all steps available to him to seek remedy when he believes that his reputation has been unfairly and falsely tarnished. Just put yourself in his shoes and ask whether you would ask for less if you became a victim of what you believe to be a malicious assault on your character, whether or not you are a public official. Again, being a public official does not stripe one of one's humanity or one's capacity to feel the pain of being maliciously attacked.
--Saturday, September 28, 2019
Osinbajo: Unraveling of Nigeria's Most Overrated Vice President
By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.Twitter: @farooqkperogiIn previous columns, I have described Yemi Osinbajo as possessing social, symbolic, and political presence—qualities that, I pointed out, Muhammadu Buhari sorely lacks. It was my way of saying that Osinbajo has the capacity to initiate motions without movement, which creates the illusion of presence, particularly considering the stultifying stagnancy that characterizes Buhari's pretense to being president of the nation.But there is always something uncannily vacuous and pretentious about Yemi Osinbajo that is just now bubbling to the surface. His smooth, debonair exterior conceals a troubling inner emptiness and a barely detectable but nonetheless strongly diffident disposition. It is the reason he unquestioningly accepted to debase the worth of his office—and his person—by becoming the conduit for the distribution of N10,000 "Tradermoni" to induce poor, traumatized, disaffiliated electorate into voting for the failed government he is a pitiful appendage to.The cabal of farouche, provincial power brokers in the presidency that habitually belittles him and visits symbolic violence on him no longer has any use for him and has not only denuded him of the crumbs he was allowed access to, it also wants to get rid of him.The tensile stress that the coordinated assault on him by his Aso Rock masters has activated has caused him to unravel quickly. We now know that Osinbajo isn't just a groveling, cowardly toady, he also isn't the smart lawyer he has been cracked up to be.Instead of confronting the real demons that are tormenting him, he has chosen to transfer his aggression elsewhere by intimidating and overawing soft, weak targets. In the process, he has exposed just how little he remembers of the law he says he is a professor of.He is now on a wildly frivolous litigation spree. As of the time of writing this column, he has sued—or has threatened to sue—"one Timi Frank and another Katch Ononuju" whom he said have "put their names to" what he said are "odious falsehoods" against him. He also threatened to sue RootsTV and Google over a YouTube video he said injured his reputation.He curiously added, "I will waive my constitutional immunity to enable the most robust adjudication of these claims of libel and malicious falsehood." That's obviously a poorly worded attempt to say he will waive his constitutional immunity to allow for a fair investigation of the allegations of corruption against him.But, as I pointed out in my September 25 social media updates, that is not only disingenuous, it also betrays how utterly little Osinbajo remembers about law, which he studied up to the master's degree level. (There's a popular misconception that because rose to the position of professor of law, he also earned a research doctorate in law. No, he didn't. A Master of Laws is his highest academic qualification.)Legal experts have pointed out that Osinabjo cannot validly relinquish his constitutional immunity against prosecution by mere self-indulgent Twitter proclamation while he still holds on to his office. If he were serious about giving up his immunity from prosecution to clear his name, he would have offered to resign while he is prosecuted-- on condition that he would be reinstated after he is found innocent. That was what the government he is an appendicular component of said to CJN Walter Onnoghen.Most importantly, though, a Supreme Court precedent has established that presidents, vice presidents, governors, and deputy governors cannot voluntarily waive their immunity. As human rights lawyer Inibehe Effiong pointed out, "The Supreme Court decided in 2001 in the case of Tinubu v. I. M. B. Securities Plc that the constitutional immunity under Section 308 of the Constitution cannot be waived. In the said Tinubu's case, former governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu decided to waive his immunity to defend a civil claim initiated against him. The Supreme Court barred the then gov of Lagos State from proceeding with the suit."Incidentally, Osinbajo was Lagos State's Attorney-General and Commissioner of Justice when this case was adjudicated. It makes you wonder what he really remembers about law. Outside of law, though, this is also about power asymmetry. Osinbajo is the second highest office holder in the land. Everyone who can conceivably probe him is below him in the bureaucratic pecking order. Waiving his immunity by mere verbal proclamation while he is still in office is both insincere and invalid.Perhaps the most laughable of Osinbajo's litigious antics is his threat to sue Google (which owns YouTube) for hosting an alleged libelous news video by RootsTV. It betrays his double-dyed ignorance of US media law, which has jurisdiction over Google.I teach media law at an American university and can bet my bottom dollar that any US judge will dismiss Osinbajo's suit with the Latin legal maxim de minimis no curat lex, which means, "the law does not concern itself with trifles."For starters, as I said of Abba Kyari in a September 15, 2018 column when he sued the Punch, Osinbajo is a public official whose conduct—both in public and in private—the public is justified to be inquisitive about and to scrutinize. Being a public official comes with a lot of perquisites and privileges, including being in the public consciousness, being able to influence the direction of national conversations, and having the symbolic resources to counter, or at least respond to, injurious information.In recognition of the influence and power that public officials—and public figures—wield, US courts impose a higher burden of proof on them to prove a case of libel against the media and the public. What would be libelous if written about a private figure isn't libelous if written about a public official.Private citizens (who also aren't public figures) have no symbolic resources to robustly respond to injurious falsehoods against them. That's why they need the protection of the law. But public officials and public figures have the social and symbolic capital to respond to any libel against them.For instance, Osinbajo's tweet denying the allegations of corruption against him and threatening to sue the purveyors of the allegation was headline news in all Nigerian news outlets. It also dominated social media chatter for days. That's a lot of power. That's why it's almost impossible for public officials and public figures to win libel cases in the US.In my forthcoming book, I pointed to several suits that were filed against Sahara Reporters in US courts by Nigerian government officials, all of which were dismissed. Osinbajo's case against RootsTV and Google will suffer a similar fate.But it's obvious that Osinbajo is pursuing a legal intimidation tactic that we call SLAPP in American media law. The acronym stands for "Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation." It's a type of flippant lawsuit whose purpose is to terrorize critics into self-censorship, not necessarily to seek redress for injury to reputation.Like Abba Kyari in 2018, Osinbajo wants to cower people into silence and muzzle public conversation about an issue that has tickled the sensation of vast swathes of Nigerians. The tactic seems to be working. The Vanguard has retracted an unfavorable story about him and apologized. RootsTV has also deleted the video that got his hackles up. Newspapers and social media commentators are now guarded.But this tactic dramatizes Osinbajo's powerlessness. When he imagined himself to be powerful, he didn't sue his critics. He caused them to be imprisoned or fired from their jobs. Deji Adeyanju was arrested and jailed for calling Osinbajo "Ole!" on Twitter.In a June 2, 2018 story titled "Nigerian Woman Loses Job after Criticizing Vice President Osinbajo Online," Premium Times reported that a young lady by the name of Bolouere Opukiri was fired from the presidential amnesty office because she wrote tweets that were critical of Osinbajo.The dimming of the "star boy's" lights is nothing short of karmic retribution. He deserves no pity.Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.Associate ProfessorJournalism & Emerging Media
School of Communication & MediaSocial Science BuildingRoom 5092 MD 2207402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State UniversityKennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.comTwitter: @farooqkperogiAuthor of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
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