THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF UNPROFESSIONAL JOURNALISM

For a whole week I kept seeing the phrase "My oga at the top" every where I looked. On the different social media, newspapers, my BBM contacts display messages etc. This phrase and whatever story was behind it had gone viral and yet I did not know what was going on! For those who do not know, 'Oga' means Boss in Nigerian Pigin English.

I made some enquiries and finally got to see the source- a live interview granted by the Lagos State Commandant of The Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps to Channels Television, a Nigerian local media house.

Of course, to be quite honest, my initial reaction to the video was an outburst of laughter but then after a short while and perhaps two to three more views it finally hit me. The high level of unprofessionalism exhibited by the two co-hosts of the program was to say the least sickening! They seemed to have forgotten they were on live TV and the interview was what it should be- an interview not a court trial! The man was bullied into ridiculing himself, his office, and the nation at large. And these are supposed to be award winning journalists who should know better on how to conduct live interviews. What happened to pre-interview off camera briefs? Or perhaps the plan from the onset was to bring the man to their studio to make him a laughing stock to create some comic relief in these hard times!

I personally think the Nigerian Union of Journalists and perhaps the Channels Television management should call these two to order.

HABEMUS PAPAM-TOTUS HAIL NOVUS POPE!!!

We have a Pope- All hail the new Pope!!! After about three days of voting, the Conclave of Cardinals have finally elected a new Pope, the 266th in the history of the church.

Pope Francis blessing the crowd

The 76 years old Pope was before now the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio. He is now Pope Francis, the first pontiff from the western hemisphere! An Argentine son of Italian migrants, he had been the only real contender against Joseph Ratzinger in the first round of balloting that led to the election of the German as Pope Benedict XVI in April 2005.

The first non-European pope in almost 13 centuries (the last was Gregory III, a Syrian, in 731), he was Argentina’s most powerful Roman Catholic prelate and a priest who led a humble lifestyle that reflected his advocacy for the downtrodden. In Latin America, whose social inequality is one of the worst of any region in the world, that truly counted for something.

The accession of a new Pope is always cause for wonderment—if only because the papacy of the Roman Catholic Church has managed to survive more vicissitudes than almost any other kingdom in history. No other institution can claim to have withstood Attila the Hun, the ambitions of the Habsburgs, the Ottoman Turks, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler in addition to Stalin and his successors. Every new pope pushes that longevity forward, through fresh crisis and challenge. And in the 21st century, he does so at the head of a spiritual empire that touches more than 1 billion souls and whose influence crosses borders and contends with other principalities and powers

This is truly hoping he lives up the to challenges and steers the church through the difficult times ahead.

I wish you well Papa!!