The hypocrisy…the self-righteous indignation spewing forth from the Thisday/Arise TV’s Augean stable is galling.
Just a couple of years ago when both men ran into graft allegations and alleged subornment of the moral fissures that bind our national security, it seemed like their public lives…their ability to pontificate had been irreversibly damaged.
Apparently not!
They have both rehabilitated and completely re-invented themselves. They are back boldly talking…a duo that should forever bury its head in shame.
The leadership there at Thisday/Arise TV is really taking advantage of Nigerians’ apathetic approach to history…recent history fa!…and flippant approach to research.
Google is your friend guys!
Google is your friend!
Let’s take two of the major characters at Thisday and Arise TV whose stock-in-trade is to pontificate about the ills in our polity and see who they really are:
1. Nduka Obaigbena, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief
* Allegedly an unscrupulous hustler and blackmailer feared by business and social circles heavyweights.
* Allegedly collects money from wealthy people so his media houses will not drag them
* Notorious for owing salaries since he founded Thisday in the mid-90ss. I know. I have friends who started that paper with him. Thisday correspondents are allegedly the most unscrupulous in the business, often forced to demand money from interviewees or to cover events of public service nature. A former governor shared his experience with them with me. They are brazen blackmailers.
* Notorious for owing newsprint suppliers to Thisday for years without paying.
* Thisday fled South Africa (after just about one year in 2004) as a result of unethical business practices, leaving unpaid debts to staff and the printers and the South African tax office. They will arrest him the next time he visits that country.
* Sacked by a British judge in 2021 as director of his own UK-based Arise TV for owing £25,671,167, which included debt to trade creditors and staff, estimated at £5,850,730. Judge ruled he was “unfit.”
* Just last month, NBC sanctioned his Arise TV and fined it N2m over a fake report that INEC had ordered a probe of Tinubu.
* Detained for weeks by EFCC in 2016 for collecting N670m from former NSA Sambo Dasuki and made to refund N600m. This was part of the diverted funds for arms purchase for the Nigerian military under Jonathan. This significantly undermined our military’s capacity to fight terrorists and save the lives of Nigerians.
* As President, Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), allegedly collected N120m from same Dasuki in 2015 on behalf of 12 newspapers. At least one newspaper – The Guardian – swore publicly that Obaigbena never gave it any money. Other newspapers swore privately. Again, this was part of the diverted funds for arms purchase for the Nigerian military under Jonathan. Obaigbena profited from the spilled blood of Nigerian soldiers who were denied tools for fighting terrorists.
2. Reuben Abati, Co-Host
* Still very much a card-carrying member of PDP.
* Was media adviser to President Jonathan. He lost that job when Tinubu led Atiku, Saraki, Amaechi and others to defeat Jonathan. Guess where his loyalty remains? PDP.
” Detained by EFCC in 2015 for allegedly collecting N500 million from Dasuki purportedly on behalf of the media. This was part of the diverted funds for arms purchase for the Nigerian military under Jonathan. Abati profited from the spilled blood of Nigerian soldiers who were denied tools for fighting terrorists. He greatly hurt the fight against terrorism.
* Ran as deputy-gubernatorial candidate of PDP under the late Buruji Kashamu, a man he knew was indicted in the US on drug trafficking charges and was a high-profile fugitive from justice in the US. Abati knew this. The world knew this. Yet, Abati ran with him in Ogun state just this past election cycle in 2019, after which he took the Arise TV job.
You see, my job on Facebook and Twitter, apart from being an equal-opportunity pain in the ass to evil people, is to treat my friends’ amnesia from time to time. Now that you know a little bit more about that Arise TV/Thisday mansion they built with spittle, you can rest, assured that the place will not survive morning dew.
I have not even begun with these people.
I am coming.
