Post by Okediadi Emeka (@emekoked)

OPEN LETTER TO DR. REUBEN ABATI: FOR HOW LONG MORE? By Otunba Abiodun Olufowobi ( PABIEKUN)
07 September 2026

Dear Rubby,

There are moments when one watches a great man occupying a particular seat and quietly wonders: Sir, what are you still doing here? I have been asking myself that question for some time now whenever I watch you on the morning show.

Let me make one thing clear from the outset: this is not an attack on you. On the contrary, it is written from a position of considerable respect for your intellect, your education, your professional journey and the heights you have attained in Nigerian journalism and public communication. You are not a man who wandered into broadcasting because somebody happened to hand you a microphone.

You studied Theatre Arts at the University of Calabar and graduated with First Class honours. You proceeded to the University of Ibadan for postgraduate studies, ultimately earning a PhD. You then built a career in journalism and broadcasting that took you through virtually every important level of the profession before you eventually became Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Goodluck Jonathan. That is not an ordinary résumé. You have been a journalist, an editor, a broadcaster, an analyst and a presidential spokesman. You have been a student and practitioner of communication at levels most Nigerian broadcasters will never experience.

And that is precisely why I am puzzled. Why are you still sitting there? Not why you are still broadcasting. That is an entirely different question. There is nothing inherently inferior about anchoring a morning television programme. Indeed, there is dignity in continuing to practise one's profession regardless of age or previous position. A former presidential spokesman does not become too important to hold a microphone. But the question is whether the particular environment in which you are holding that microphone continues to be worthy of the experience you bring to it. Increasingly, I am not sure that it is.

The issue becomes particularly uncomfortable when one watches some of your exchanges with Rufai Oseni. Rufai is undoubtedly intelligent, energetic, articulate and confident. He has carved out his own space in Nigerian television and has become a recognisable media personality. There is nothing wrong with that. But there is a difference between confidence and experience. There is also a difference between challenging a senior professional and appearing determined to defeat him before the cameras. And, Rubby, there have been occasions when the latter impression has become difficult to ignore.

I have watched some of those exchanges and wondered whether the producers are still running a morning current-affairs programme or whether the studio has temporarily been converted into a debating arena where the winner is the person who manages to interrupt the other person most successfully. That cannot be the future of serious broadcasting. And here is the irony: you do not need to compete with Rufai. Your résumé already defeated the competition decades ago.

You have been where many broadcasters are still trying to get to. You have occupied offices where the question was not whether a programme would trend on social media but how the government of a country would communicate with millions of citizens and the international community. You have sat in the Presidential Villa. You have dealt with presidential communication. You have spent decades observing the Nigerian media from the inside. So when the subject is broadcasting ethics, journalism or professional responsibility, you are not speaking merely as another television presenter. You are speaking as a man who has spent a lifetime in the profession.

That does not make you infallible. But it ought to make your experience worthy of respect. And this is where I have a problem. Rudeness is not intellectual courage. Interrupting somebody is not proof that you have defeated his argument. Speaking louder is not the same thing as speaking better. And television confidence should never be confused with professional authority.

The younger generation of broadcasters must certainly be allowed to challenge the older generation. Indeed, they should. Journalism would be dead if seniority became a licence never to be questioned. But there is a way to disagree with an elder. There is a way to challenge a professor. There is a way to disagree with a former presidential spokesman. And there is a way to tell a man with decades of professional experience that you think he is wrong without making the disagreement itself the spectacle. That is called professional maturity.

Perhaps Rufai will say that this is television and that robust disagreement is part of what makes the programme interesting. Fair enough. But there is a danger when the presenters themselves become more interesting than the subjects they are supposed to be discussing. The audience did not switch on the television to watch t

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