It was a single ruling, delivered by a single Judge, Daniel Abutu, of an Abuja Federal High Court. But by the time Nigerian newspapers were done with reporting it, any reader would be forgiven for admitting to intense bewilderment.
Depending on which newspaper you read, the status of Vice President Goodluck Jonathan had changed marginally, or significantly, or remained utterly unchanged.
Different strokes
The Punch and the Vanguard, with their choice of the modal verb “can”, were relatively unenthusiastic in their interpretation. “Jonathan can perform presidential functions – Court,” said the Punch. The Vanguard’s headline was almost identical: “Jonathan can perform Yar’Adua’s duties – Court.”
In ThisDay’s interpretation, the court ruling came across as an unequivocal expansion of Vice Presidential powers, to fill the eight week old power vacuum: “Court Orders Jonathan to Exercise Presidential Powers.” The Sunwas even more assured. “Court orders Jonathan to Take Over,” it proclaimed. And the Daily Champion toed a similar line: “Yar’Adua: Court orders V-P to take charge).
On the other side of the fence, lay NEXT’s “No vacancy!”, The Guardian’s “Why Jonathan can’t be ‘Acting President,’ by court” and The Nation’s”Court: VP can’t perform without Yar’Adua’s nod”.
The Nation and Guardian’s choices of “can’t” rendered their headlines direct negations of the reports by most of the other papers. Even further afield lay BusinessDay, with its “Hardliners hold on as court, PDP foreclose Jonathan presidency” hinting of irrevocability.
NEXT asked some newspaper editors to comment on the judgment, and the resulting confusion. In the opinion of Phillip Isakpa, Editor of BusinessDay, Thursday’s reportage was “basically an approach [issue]” and clearly highlights the “two divides” of contemporary journalism. “I think journalism can be approached in two ways; people wanting to report straight news, and people wanting to interpret the news,” he said. “At a time like this it is very critical that journalists interpret the news.” For him, the conflicting headlines are a manifestation of that interpretative choice; the right of editors to “decide how to play the information that comes to their hand.”
Editor of The Punch, Steve Ayorinde, dismissed the ruling. “What is clear first and foremost is that the judgment is faulty,” he said, variously describing it as a “blackmarket judgment” and “a “‘jankara’ ruling”. (Jankara is a popular market on Lagos Island). He added that the variations in reporting arose from the fact that some newspaper editors “were only being careful so they don’t injure the chances of the Vice President, who should have been Acting President now.”
He believes the speed with which the judgment was obtained (NEXT described it as “perhaps, the fastest case that has ever come to decision from initiation to resolution”) highlights the sinister intentions behind it. Editors, therefore, “having correctly read the mood of the nation at this time didn’t want their headlines to play the game those behind the judgment wanted to achieve.”
Mr. Bolaji Tunji, of the National Mirror (which didn’t report the judgment as it is currently on hiatus) said that “the confusion arose because the judgment itself was ambiguous.”
“Nothing has changed.”
For Mr. Simon Kolawole, Editor of ThisDay, even more important than the medley of headlines is the actual implication of the judgment. “The judgment, if you ask me, is no judgment at all. All that Justice Abutu was saying is that the status quo remains – that is, the Vice President can only do what the President directs him to do. That is the essence of the reference to Section 5 of the constitution,” he said. “In simple English, the Vice President as Acting President will be able to initiate actions, but this judgment is saying the Vice President can only do what the President delegates to him. It simply means they can still be taking the budget to Yar’Adua in Saudi Arabia to sign. Nothing has changed.”