Between journalism and blackmail

I want to ask Mamu, publisher of the Kaduna-based weekly magazine, Desert Herald, some fervent questions: is the real issue centred on N50m or N15m? I think Mamu needs to tell Nigerians more. Another astonishing thing that Mamu has done is to bring Hajia Jamila Tangaza, the Director of the Abuja Geographic Information System (AGIS) […]

I want to ask Mamu, publisher of the Kaduna-based weekly magazine, Desert Herald, some fervent questions: is the real issue centred on N50m or N15m? I think Mamu needs to tell Nigerians more.
Another astonishing thing that Mamu has done is to bring Hajia Jamila Tangaza, the Director of the Abuja Geographic Information System (AGIS) into the fray. I just can imagine why Mamu will mischievously and rudely label her as a former BBC reporter.  She was never a reporter with the BBC at any point in time; she started as a producer of programmes in BBC London and was elevated to the position of Head of BBC Hausa. She has worked in various BBC Departments as well as Focus on Africa, Network Africa and BBC Outlook. Tangaza’s overwhelming and outstanding CV is inclusive but not restricted to being Harvard-trained, a Master’s Degree in Management, Organisations and Governance from the London School of Economics and she is also a Fellow of the Green Templeton College of the prestigious Oxford University.
If there is any issue about the account of the FCT Administration, the right place to go should be to find out from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation or the Auditor-General of the Federation. Occasionally, some NGOs willing to find about the state of finances of some government agencies, including the FCTA, usually apply to these agencies for such. In the case of FCT, the account has been audited for the 2012 fiscal year and all the accounts were found to be in order. They are there for anybody to see.
If Mamu is as experienced as he claims, he should have made an effort to get the side of the FCTA so as to make a balanced judgement with regards to the facts he claims are in his possession; the same biased and antagonistic facts he intends to use for his fictitious book. Just recently the FCTA released information on all the contracts that were awarded under the current FCT Minister to a media organisation predicated on Freedom of Information and owing to the fact that this administration has nothing to hide whatsoever.
Finally, there is also a feeling that Mamu may after all be a willing tool in the hand’s of some unprincipled political opponents of the FCT Minister, especially in view of the fact that the 2015 elections are drawing closer. That explains why his pen is dripping with vitriol against the FCT Minister in what he has termed the “The Rot Within”. If this is the case then Mamu should be open about it. Based on the foregoing, it is pertinent for Tukur Mamu to desist from using Senator Bala Mohammed, Jamila Tangaza and Ibrahim Bomai in any of his misleading publications, predicated on the fact that we have the capacity and propensity to bring him to disrepute.
Ibrahim Sarkin Yaki. [email protected]