by Cheta Nwanze

Making use of his teeth, he separated the left ear of one of the journalists from the chap’s body. You see, human parts are also valuable.

Journalists are a really annoying lot. I should know, I’ve worked with quite a few of them in the last three years. They ask too many annoying questions, they correct you all the time, and they have this really annoying tendency of making you look stupid.

So I understand the frustration of Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala when some of these pesky things from whatever publication came calling to ask him really annoying questions about who owns what land and who was an indigene of his village. You see, as journalists are wont to do, they gave Chief Alao-Akala the impression that they wanted to buy some land from him, when what they really wanted to do was to confirm a rumour that the late Olusola Saraki was not from Ilorin. Poverty can be a really blinding disease, and the moment it dawned on Chief Alao-Akala that the journalists were not in his area to buy land, he decided to go for the next valuable thing. Making use of his teeth, he separated the left ear of one of the journalists from the chap’s body. You see, human parts are also valuable.

Journalists being what they are, a national newspaper seized on the similarity in name between Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, of Ago-Ika in Abeokuta, Ogun state, and Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala representing the NURTW Constituency of Ibadan, Oyo state. The headline screamed, “Alao Akala Arraigned for Biting Journalist” complete with a picture of the bleached version of Alao-Akala.

While the hapless not-ex-governor was being arraigned in Abeokuta, 68km away in Ibadan, members of the real-ex-governor’s constituency were doing what they do best and getting jiggy with it. According to the Tribune, Taiwo Adeagbo, a driver, and as a result a member of the NURTW, was “mortally wounded” in a clash between drivers and traffic enforcers. The journalists then go on to tell us that Mr. Adeagbo “is responding to treatment”, not minding the fact that in the very first sentence of the story, they had already killed him. Pesky journalists eh?

If the authorities of NAFDAC and my alma mater, the University of Benin, are to be believed, then pesky journalists were responsible for the mischievous claim that Prof. Ibeh, not-the-Dean of the School of Basic Medical Sciences, had found a cure for HIV/AIDS. What I found interesting from this report where NAFDAC finally made it categorically clear that no cure has as yet been found, is that in the initial report announcing the “cure”, Ibeh was represented as the Dean, School of Basic Medical Sciences. That leads me to wonder what Prof. Iyawe’s position is in the scheme of things. Was he appointed to the post in the last 48 hours? Is he now Acting Dean? Did Prof. Ibeh lie about his position? Or was it just lazy journalism in which no one bothered to ask any serious questions before rushing to press with “the good news”?

Lazy journalism, as Abdul Mahmud likes to say, is one of the things responsible for casting lazy headlines. And this one from today’s Tribune is one glaring example of such. “ANPP, CPC, ACN become one by April“? That sounds so vulgar. Kinda reminds me of that sappy song by the Spice Girls from 1995. {Clears throat} …cos tonite, is d nite, when 2 become 1…

Bits and bobs

The Act establishing the EFCC should be up for serious review. Three years after the Securency scandal first broke, our anti-corruption body has finally gotten round to picking up former CBN suit, Uncle Charles Soludo.

In contravention of international law, MV Marivia Monrovia left the UK, and came to Nigeria laden with toxic waste. The FG has now ordered it be sent back to its port of origin, but no arrests have been made. Expect the EFCC to begin investigations in three years.

Lagos state shokoto, Tunde Fashola has asked the FG to please relocate the tank farms in Apapa to the only part of Lagos his government really has an interest in, Lekki. “The nation presently does not have the wherewithal to contain any sort of fire incident involving oil installation facilities,” Barrister Fashola moaned, while in the distance, some unemployed arsonists tried to figure out which wood market to set fire to next.

On Christmas Eve, in Nasarawa Gwong, Plateau state, Salisu Mohammed, 23, invited his neighbour’s 6-year old to play. Then the devil got him to play with her in other ways. Now that his head is clear, he is pleading for leniency since “he is a first-time offender”. I say castrate him.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.