As is usually true of life, there are often weeds among the
flowers. Elombah.com, the virulent, poorly cooked blog operated out of London
by Nnewi born Daniel Elomba is one cancerous weed in the flowerbed of the
Nigerian social-media. If the call for legislation of the social media in
Nigeria is ever heeded, it will find validation in the misguided and often
misleading yellow-journalism of the kind that Elombah.com practices. Years of
failed legal practice and failed attempts to make a success of his life as a
fraudster in England have left its proprietor bitter with himself and his more
successful peers, turning him into a blight on the conscience of the
compassionate world.
Indeed, since he chanced on online publishing, Daniel Elombah
has kept the profile of a bull in a china shop. Having absolutely no training
in journalism, everything is grist to his horrific rumour mill known as Elombah.com.
He has evidently no understanding of the imperatives of “balancing a story” or
giving the other party a “fair hearing.” Writing under assorted pen-names,
Daniel Elombah has turned himself to judge and jury over the victims of his
hideous quackery. He has no patience to crosscheck and validate his stories; he
has no understanding of the difference between facts and conjectures or simple
gut-feeling. He may never have heard the journalistic maxim that “facts are
sacred and comments are free.” He is a journalistic equivalent of the failed
poet in Odia Ofeimun’s classic poem; The Poet Lied, whom the bard described as
“the quack of vision,” who moves around the society like a lose canon, taking foggy
snapshots of his own dementia. His impulses are driven by his bitterness with
his own personal failure and his determination to get rich or die trying. In
his psychological state, Elombah is obdurate to all dictates of decency and
fine breeding.
The moral high horse of the journalist as the repository of
the people’s trust to give an objective and balanced account in their stories
at all times is not for him. The high-minded subtleties of developmental
journalism are way beyond his reach. Daniel Elombah is too dense to apprehend
nuance. Not for him too, the painstaking efforts that precede investigative
reporting. Elombah would rather report a rumour or a speculation first and
investigate later. Not for him as well, the coy, satirical, humourous, academic
or even artistic and lyrically feisty style that has earned his contemporaries
a name in cyber-sphere. Elombah has no refined taste. He is bitter, combative,
uncouth and half-literate in his style, torturing his readers with poor copies
that are nothing but tasteless apologia to good writing and anchoring his
journalism entirely on sensational falsehood and witch-hunt.
Among other blogs, Elombah.com stands out as a typical
example of what a blog is not - a threadbare patchwork that is devoid of
aesthetics and elegance, depicting its owner’s aridity of mind. Those who know
Daniel Elombah say that his blog is reflection of his person; sly, shadowy,
greedy and inelegant. They claim that while other bloggers devote time to
improving their craft and expanding their vision of society, Elombah devotes
time looking for people who have personal scores to settle with each other to
pay for his services and some unsuspecting politicians and society women to
arm-twist into parting with hefty sums of money in exchange for his silence.
His approach is usually to rake up some mud on his
unsuspecting victims and splash it on his blog and wait for any signs of
desperation or anxiety from his prey before he pounces, demanding large sums of
money in return for his silence. If his prey shows any signs of defiance,
Elombah would naturally up the ante, dredging up more dirty stories and
manufacturing some to “nail” him. More often than not, if the victim proves to
be really unperturbed, ELombah would get so reckless that he can publish three
or four negative stories on one hapless victim in one day and in the process,
give himself away as a thoughtless blackmailer, desperate to gain the attention
of his victim.
In the last one year, many Nigerians have come under Daniel
Elombah’s crude journalism. The new governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie
Obiano, has recently come under his attacks. Before him, the Petroleum
Minister, Deizani Madueke and Nuhu Ribadu have taken direct hits from his
poisoned arrow. Elombah is known to back off once a piece of meat is thrown his
way. His belief that the only way to become instantly relevant or rich is
through muckraking and enthronement of falsehood sees him overreaching himself
sometimes and casting himself in the mould of a tragic case of one who is
afflicted with the dilemma of belonging. He lives in England but hungers for
Nigeria, he trained as a lawyer but practices as a quack journalist, he hankers
for instant wealth but has no patience for meticulous planning.
In the end, we see in
Daniel Elombah and his Elombah.com, the tragedy of belonging; the dilemma of
the bat who inhabits the interstices between a winged creature and a four
footed beast. This may well be the reason why many people will not waste their
time reading Daniel Elombah. His Elombah.com is a good example of excreta of
the social media and a bad example of how to practice citizen journalism. Only
one warning will suffice for visitors to his blog – Readers beware!
Okey Madubuife writes from Ojoto.
No comments:
Post a Comment