CNN, Jeff Koinange , Nigeria and the Niger Delta

The Nigerian government today accused CNN of fabricating a story that ran over the weekend, it was a story by their correspondence in which he portrayed Nigeria as a country on the verge of collapse / civil war and totally under the control of a fake MEND (the real MEND have denied any association with the story) More on CNN and the fabricated? story.

Jeff Koinange refered to the the group as MEND more than 4 times in his report and actually confirmed exchanging emails with one of their leaders named Jomo Gbomo before embarking on his journey to produce this story, the ironic thing is that Jomo Gbomo have come out to deny that that was his group, he actually went further to state that Jeff Koinange actually solicited the group for a show for this story

" "On Monday January 22, 2007, we were approached by Mr. Jeff Koinange who implicitly acknowledged this email account to be the authentic voice of MEND.
"He requested we stage some scenes for a very important CNN programme which was supposed to air in the first week of February. "

Something is troubling about all this, first Jeff Koinange claimed that he was approached by Jomo Gbomo over email, but reading the statement above made by the same Jomo Gbomo you could see that the two stories are different oboviously one of them is incorrect.

He showed us a Major Tamuno that even his own contact claim doesn't exist actually here is a statement by his contact

"We stated clearly we would not be disposed to fit into his tight schedule. Our struggle is much more to us than parading before everyone willing to film fighters. I'm sure the world has seen enough of that.
"What CNN has presented as the truth to its unsuspecting viewers, is a collection of thugs, pirates and bunkerers put together by Jeff Koinange and CNN to meet up with the deadline given to Mr. Koinange by his editors in CNN. It is far from the truth.
"The band of criminals paraded by CNN as MEND have nothing to do with MEND. They are indeed the kidnappers of the Filipinos and as earlier stated, carried out this act at the behest of politicians and some misguided so-called Ijaw leaders to prevent an Itsekiri man emerging as governor in Delta State.
"It is astonishing that a network of high repute such as CNN would descend this low in its search for a sensational story. We are reluctant to release our correspondence with Mr. Koinange but will circulate this if our claims are refuted."
In an earlier release, Gbomo had stated: "From the inception of our campaign, all statements from MEND have been released through this email account only and we categorically denied taking the Filipinos.".
Apparently refering to another group which claimed to have kidnapped the Filipinos, Gbomo said the so called Major General Tamuno "is unknown to us and is a fraud."
The Filipinoes, he said, "were abducted by a community in Gbaramatu with the connivance of FNDIC in Warri who were paid by local politicians to blackmail the government into annulling the PDP primaries in Delta State"

One thing I will like to say now is, Gbomo need to release whatever correspondence they had with Jeff so that we all know what actually took place, we deserve to know the truth because this kind of development is not good for the struggle of the people of the Niger Delta (though I do not support any kind of violence)

What amazes me is that there is no single Nigerian official interviewed for the story and CNN as a reputable news organization does understand the implication of that action, I wonder if anyone vetted the story, Jeff Koinange did however in his own defense on Anderson cooper program (who also described Nigeria as darkness and the Niger Delta as the heart of Darkness) said that he put in a request for an interview with the president of Nigeria and the Nigerian navy but they could not accomodate his request.

I have two problems with this, that story does not deserve an interview with the Nigerian president or Navy (the issue of Niger Delta however does deserve their attention and actions to resolve this peacefully and give them back what they deserve) , I hope someone will help tell him that Nigeria have a ministry of information and he could talk to anyone there, asking to speak to Nigerian president on this issue is like a Nigerian journalist requesting an interview with an American president about a story on Iraqi militants, so in other words his request for interview might have been purposely misdirected so as not to get a reply.


His report made it very clear that the militants were better armed than the Nigerian navy, he described them as terrifying, disciplined angry youths , I can't say much about his description (since there is even an issue of authencity in the story itself) other than the angle of his camera that was shown to us. But I need to let him understand something , he saw a couple of militants armed for a show and he reaches a conclusion that they were better armed than the Nigerian navy? he must be kidding or just wanted to exagerate a little bit for his unsuspecting American viewers, even the militants will laugh at such an assessment by a journalist working for a well known News organization like CNN.

If the Nigerian Navy is not fighting back, it is not because they are unable to, or because they are underarmed, but rather because we know what war meants, he has been a reporter covering wars, we have been the victims in the past, there is a big difference between the two.

CNN have also come out to say that it did not pay anyone for the story other than the $700 that what was paid to rent a boat and the $450 for a local journalist that worked with Koinange for the three days that the filming took place. While I have no reason to believe that CNN paid anyone for this story, (unless something turn up in future) . Lets take this into perspective, the amount paid by CNN equals roughly about 150000 naira (one hundred and fify thousand naira) which is like three year salary for a Nigerian police officer, an entry level journalist perhaps take home about 15000 to 22000 a month, while the cost of renting the boat is still been worked on (will make it available once we have a figure) it certainly may not be up to $700 for three days. I will do a major analysis of the amount paid by CNN as this story develops, the bottom line is in Nigeria $700 for three days rental is a lot of money so also is $150 a day for the translator.This is however not to say CNN did not pay this amount we just needed to put things in perspective so that we all understand that $700 in America does not mean $700 in Nigeria, it is a lot more.

Militants Disown CNN Report

More on CNN and the fabricated? story