It is unfortunate that the people of Osun State would again be forced to relive the painful experience of political intolerance exactly a year after the wind of democratic change swept out the usurpers from office. Last week, the state government reportedly paid for a two-hour radio programme Radio Link broadcast by the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN). The programme was to have featured as part of events marking the first anniversary of the administration of the state governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola.
Alas, this was not to be. Few hours to the planned broadcast, the management of the radio station, ostensibly acting on the orders of the Minister of Information and Communications Labaran Maku, allegedly caused the stoppage of the programme. Not surprisingly, no explanations were given except a terse announcement that the programme, which would have been broadcast live to the people of the state and beyond, would no longer hold.
The latest act of hostility against the state government by the federal government – though implacable, hardly comes as a surprise. If anything, it merely extends the strings of hostile actions targeted at the state and its people by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) -led Federal Government. The incident of October 25 is still fresh in memory. In that incident, Kogi State Commissioner of Police Amamama Ababakasanga, also claiming to be acting on orders from above, took a contingent of the state through an unprecedented ordeal of internal deportation after aborting their journey to Abuja, the federal capital.
We are of course alarmed that a minister of the republic would so blatantly abuse his authority for partisan ends as was the case in Osun State at the weekend. We dare ask – whose interest is the minister promoting, the partisan interest of his PDP or the Nigerian public whose taxes are used to maintain the broadcast outfit? It does the radio station grave injury that a political functionary can sit back in office in Abuja and decree what the station can broadcast or reject on a publicly- owned medium. We also consider it an unacceptable derogation of the rights of the citizens to be informed on the activities of their government.
What makes it worse is that the minister whose primary duty is to inform citizens on government activities is the one actively seeking to circumscribe the rights of fellow citizens to be heard by their elected government. The minister is, after all, not a functionary of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) or part of the management of FRCN. That is what makes his meddlesomeness shameful, irresponsible as it is unacceptable.
The citizens of this country deserve to know what informed the minister's action. Is it that an opposition voice in a plural democracy like ours does not deserve to be heard? What message is the administration sending across to the international community on how it treats opposition?
In case the minister pretends not to know, this is supposed to be a democracy governed by the rule of law. The culture of might and impunity, reminiscent of the military era, has no place in a constitutional environment. Conduct like that of minister Maku merely exemplifies how far the political class, particularly the PDP, has to go to imbibe a true democratic culture.
We expect the government of Osun State to take up the matter with the appropriate authorities. We expect every right-thinking Nigerian to join in saying Never Again to this manifest intolerance.
The Nation