New Telegraph

Momoh: Passage of a statesman

FELIX NWANERI writes on the life and times of former Minister of Information, Prince Tony Momoh, who passed on recently

The torrent of tributes for elder statesman and former Minister of Information, Prince Tony Momoh, who passed on Monday, obviously justifies the conviction that the quality of life is best measured by how much and well it impacts humanity. From the north to the southern parts of the country, it has been grief over the death of a man, whose 81 years sojourn on planet earth was impactful, exemplary and worthy of a more detailed study in dedication to humanity.

Born in 1939, Momoh was first a journalist before he ventured into politics where he rose to serve as Minister of Information and Culture between 1986 and 1990 during the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida.

The cultural engineer was the 165th child of King Momoh 1 of Auchi. He was the third of the four children his mother had for the monarch and his mother was the junior of the three groups into which the Momoh household of 45 wives and 245 children were organised. He was educated at Government School Auchi, the school his father established at Auchi in 1922. He also attended Teachers Training College, Abraka, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, University of Lagos and Nigerian Law school.

He has degrees in Mass Communication and Law and is a solicitor and advocate of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. Momoh worked in various capacities, including professional and administrative, in the Daily Times of Nigeria Group. He also served as Chairman of the Board of Nigeria Airways and was a member of the Nigerian Press Council.

He also served his state, Edo, as a member of its Economic Advisory Committee in 1991. At the Daily Times, Momoh started as a sub-editor in October 1962 and rose steadily through the ranks to become Editor and Deputy General Manager. Though Momoh worked with a government- owned medium, he never shied away from speaking truth to power and that pitted him against some powers that be in the course of his career.

In 1981, for instance, the Senate led by Joseph Wayas summoned Momoh for contempt. This caused a major legal battle in which Momoh successfully argued that as a journalist, he was empowered by the Constitution of Nigeria to hold government accountable at all times.

In a celebrated case between him and the Speaker, House of Representatives in 1982, the High Court held that a journalist has the right to refuse to disclose their source of information. However, in Senate vs Tony Momoh (1983), the Court of Appeal held that the press is not a fourth arm of government; that a newspaper publisher has no special immunity and that the press can be ordered to disclose its sources in some cases.

Momoh was Director of the Alex Ekwueme Presidential Campaign Organization in 1999. He chaired the screening and conduct of gubernatorial and state House of Assembly primaries of Kano State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 1999 general election.

He later joined the joined the All Peoples Party of Nigeria (ANPP) and served as chairman, Media and Publicity of the party’s Campaign Organisation in the 2003 and 2007 elections. He was also Chairman of the Political Committee of the Muhammadu Buhari Organisation. In January 2011, Momoh was appointed National Chairman of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), a party formed by Buhari after he left the ANPP in the lead-up to the 2011 elections.

Momoh described the CPC as a mass movement that was bound to grow and achieve the high goals of its founders. But after a disappointing outing in the 2011 polls, the CPC merged with other major opposition political parties – ANPP, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and a faction of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to form the All Progressives Congress (APC), which defeated PDP in the 2015 presidential election.

A strong advocate of Nigeria’s unity, Momoh was known to always speak his mind on prevalent national issues. Even when his party (APC) came to power, he never refrained from doing so. He was equally a party man who defended his party and President Buhari in particular. He once told New Telegraph in an interview that it is absurd that some people tend to resort to violence to get issues concerning their section of the country addressed even when it is clear to them that nobody can hold the nation to ransom. His words: “The unity of the country is not negotiable; nobody can negotiate that. If you do so, you will be confronted; whoever you are. So, if people have a problem, they should table it for us to approach it constitutionally. But if you take laws into your hands, someone will tell you that there is a limit. In fact, the law says your freedom ends where mine begins. You cannot shut down a street and say people should not pass and think you are making a point whether you are a religious body, ethnic body or a political group. “Nobody has the right to hold Nigeria to ransom. We are one people, one country, one nation; we should try to settle our problems internally. If anybody wants to divide this country, the government in power will be failing not to confront that challenge.” As an ardent supporter of President Buhari, Momoh defended him with passion. With an untainted loyalty to the Buhari project, Momoh remained steadfast with Buhari from 2003 till he breathed his last breath on Monday.

It was against this backdrop that many tagged him as the “Chief Promoter” and “Core Buharist.” He was too sure of Buhari that he said during the campaigns for the 2015 elections that Nigerians should stone APC leaders if the party failed to perform after two years in power. Even when Buhari’s performance became a subject of debate midway his first term in office (2017), Momoh was there to defend him. He then said of the Buhari administration: “Yes, I said if in two years we do not perform, we should be stoned.

Though it is not yet two years that this government was sworn-in, I am telling you that we cannot be stoned because we have performed. To me, President Buhari has performed creditably well. To some others, even if the people of Mars say the President has performed, I know of others in Nigeria, who will still not agree that he has performed. “We promised to secure Nigeria, we also said that we will stabilise the country through infrastructural development and then prosperity will emerge.

So, the area of campaign were tackling insecurity, fighting corruption and also reviving the economy. In the area of insecurity, there were 14 local governments under the control of Boko Haram in Borno State.

As things were going, if Buhari had not been elected president, by now, many of us would have run away or died because Boko Haram would have taken over Abuja. Today, where is Boko Haram? It is obvious that Boko Haram is finished. Gone are the days where they will decimate a whole village and hoist their flags. So, in the area of security, nobody can say that we have not performed.

“In the area of corruption, nobody can say that we have not tried. The fear of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) today is the beginning of wisdom for corrupt people. Everybody who has anything to hide is jittery of the EFCC, if not on the run. On the economy, nobody can now say Nigeria solely depends on oil. Everybody now sees agriculture emerging. People are now going to the farm.

In fact, many of the farmers today are smiling to the banks. “Another thing that people are not looking at is what is happening in the South- East. I am confidently saying that a lot of our votes in 2019 will come from the South-East. Then, Enugu- Onitsha road was not addressed for the four years that Goodluck Jonathan was there. Enugu-Port Harcourt road was also not addressed. They were singing songs about Second Niger Bridge, not much was done.

The erosion sites were all neglected. Now, these issues are being addressed. Many leaders in the South- East are seeing what APC is doing and are now moving in droves to party to help galvanise support for it.

So, we are performing and I am saying nobody can say they want to stone us if they are real in their assessment in the area of security, anti-corruption war and the economy.” Momoh also rose in defence of the President at a time some people expressed the belief that he has lost control of his government to a cabal, saying: “Everybody who knows the President knows that he gives responsibilities and then gives you the authorisation.

He is not one of those who will ask you to do something and will not give you the free hand to do it. That is his style of governance. “During his time as military head of state, his second-in-command, the late Tunde Idiagbon, was very visible but that doesn’t imply that Buhari was not in control because he was the one who gave Idiagbon the work he did. The same thing is happening with Osinbajo today. Compare that to what happened between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar between 2003 and 2007

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