RE: Kashamu Sponsors Bill On Mental health
Our attention has been drawn to a report with the above title in the online version of The Punch newspaper which should be published in the hard copy edition of Friday, 9th October, 2015.
Despite exercising great restraint in not joining issues with The Punch newspaper over the years, we have noticed a consistent pattern by some elements within the newspaper to prosecute a proxy political battle.
This time, the newspaper took its biased for Senator Kashamu a notch higher when it deliberately twisted a report that a bill he sponsored on mental health illnesses had passed first reading in the Senate.
Instead of commending Senator Kashamu for being one of the first set of lawmakers to sponsor a bill in the 8th Senate, or at least just report event and tell us the contents of the bill, it (The Punch) went on a binge to cast aspersion on his person.
First, which unnamed experts told The Punch that drugs “remained the major cause of mental ailments among the youths?” This is just a colouration given to the report by The Punch’s Sunday Aborishade who has a clear mandate to report lies about Senator Kashamu and/or twist reports that relate to him. Recall that he was the one who, shortly after the 8th Senate was inaugurated in June, reported that Kashamu was absent at the Senate whereas he was not! Now, in another of his jaundiced reports, Aborishade says “Kashamu is currently being investigated by the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency on issues relating to drug abuse which, experts claimed, remained the major cause of mental ailments among the youths”. Pray, does it not smack of ignorance that a man who had been tried and discharged severally over the same allegations both in Nigeria and the UK could be said to be “being investigated”? If he is still being investigated by the NDLEA (the very agency that had severally testified in his favour), why was the extradition proceedings instituted against him dismissed in June, this year?
In case The Punch and its minders do not know, according to WebMD, mental illnesses are caused by three major factors, namely biological factors/inherited traits, psychological factors and environmental factors. It is under the environmental factors that you have substance abuse. It is NEVER “a major cause of mental ailments” as The Punch claimed, all in a desperate bid to justify its biased reportage.
So, the less than clever attempt to narrow mental illnesses to drugs abuse and make Senator Kashamu unfit to present the bill, even when several courts have exonerated him, is wicked and unprofessional, to say the least!
It is only consistent with The Punch’s Pull-Kashamu-Down campaign. It has an uncanny penchant for twisting anything that relates to Senator Kashamu, and there are several examples. It reportage of Ogun State/South West PDP issues, congratulatory message to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, face-off with the NDLEA and lately the NANS award!
We do know the relationship among the Managing Director of The Punch newspapers, Mr. ‘Demola Osinubi, former Governor Gbenga Daniel, Mr. Dapo Abiodun and some politicians in Ago-Iwoye, Ijebu North Local Government Area of Ogun State where Osinubi and Senator Kashamu hail from. But we never knew that anyone would sacrifice professionalism on the altar of primordial sentiments.
Clearly, Osinubi and his cohorts are under a clear mandate to use the newspaper to run down Senator Kashamu under the pretext of performing its professional duties! But, we know that no man, no medium, no matter how powerful, is more powerful than God.
Thank you.
Signed
Austin Oniyokor
Media aide to Senator Buruji Kashamu
