Dear Reuben Abati -By Charles Ogbu

Reuben Abati, the moment you presented your Arise News interview with Atiku Abubakar to the public, your job was done. It was time to allow the public play their own role as the examiners of the said interview. And going by the feedbacks, you could see that the public consider the entirety of the interview below expectation. As a professional journalist, you have no option than to take the public verdict in good fate. No matter how good you think you are as a student, you cannot mark your own script in an examination.

You may not realise it but sometimes, if not most times, you allow your fragile ego get the better of you and you act as though you are superior to everyone. You should be more receptive to criticism because you are not omniscient neither is your journalism beyond scrutiny.

No professional journalist would go to the house of a supposed front-runner in a Presidential election (as against inviting him to the studio to speak directly to the over 200 million people he is applying to for a job), take up a seat and speak with the candidate as though they were having an Umunna family meeting (no serious question asked, no drilling at all, deleting his tweet condemning the barbaric murder of Ms.Deborah was not mentioned, you were even scared to counter him when he wrongly claimed that public officials are free to run other businesses, you didn’t counter him when he gave a false figure about the population of Egypt and her police force as you would if you were interviewing another candidate), edit the so-called interview before selling same to the public….and turn around to denigrate the same public for expressing rightous outrage. I wonder why the quintessential Rufai Oseni wasn’t included in your team for that interview.

These youths you treat with disdainful contempt are simply saying their eyes are now open and that with the democratisation of the media which social media has since done, they would no longer allow anyone deceive them. I understand you may still be interested in political appointment in the event of PDP’s victory but you don’t need to disparage the same youths you and your principals stole their future, to achieve this.

As a person, I find it shockingly petrifying that in the 21st century 2022, at a time of massive opportunities in the digital space, a supposedly well educated man like yourself still thinks young people on the internet are unemployed idlers. This is a very silly notion, one that could only have been harboured by a mind stuck in the pre-historic analogue era. A shame, is it not?

And please take this unsolicited advice from me: stop using Arise TV platform to pursue a vendetta against governor Nyesom Ezenwo Wike – on behalf of some PDP politicians. Descending into the arena as you always do each time Nwike’s name is mentioned (you did same thing this morning) is against the ethics of journalism.