Rufai And Righteous Indignation Here And There

Valentine Obienyem

I have watched Rufai’s encounter with Minister Umahi countless times, and I have followed the reactions that have emerged in its wake.

Rufai embodies the kind of journalist Nigeria desperately needs today—one who speaks the truth without disguise, fear, or favour. Many politicians dread him because even the very stones on which he walks emit sparks that burn those with skeletons in their cupboards.

Is his approach harsh? Yes, but it should be. The problems confronting Nigeria are so deep and maddening that they demand a style of journalism infused with urgency, outrage, and moral intensity. He has to shout and wail because our leaders have hearing deficiencies!

Is he too confrontational? Perhaps, but how else can the truth make itself heard in a land where lies sit comfortably in power? Soft tones have been tried, and they have failed. For decades, journalists have spoken in measured politeness while corruption grew fat and impunity strutted unashamedly. A nation deafened by hypocrisy needs the voice of someone who dares to shout at ministers.

Does he sometimes go too far? Maybe. But what is “too far” in a country where leaders travel in convoys through potholes they refuse to repair, where promises of change dissolve into excuses, and where the poor are told to tighten belts that are already cutting into their flesh? In such a place, moderation easily becomes complicity.

Should journalism be passionate? Yes—passionately moral, passionately honest, and passionately human. Rufai’s indignation is not a loss of professionalism; it is the recovery of conscience. A journalist without passion becomes merely an announcer of decay rather than a challenger to it. I admire what the Arise team is doing.

Should journalists fear being accused of bias when they speak against power? Only if silence has ever saved a nation. True journalism is not about neutrality between truth and falsehood; it is about loyalty to justice and accountability. Rufai’s manner may offend the comfortable, but it brings comfort to the offended—those whose daily lives bear the weight of bad governance.

Is anger unprofessional? Not when it springs from integrity. There is destructive anger, and there is redemptive anger—the kind that drives reform, exposes hypocrisy, and awakens the dormant conscience of a people. Rufai’s anger belongs to the latter category—an anger guided by reason, tempered by truth, and refined by purpose.

In his exchange with Minister Umahi, Rufai was right. He spoke not merely as a journalist but as a citizen burdened by the nation’s endless decay. His anger was not personal; it was national. It reflected our collective frustration and discontent.

His righteous indignation reminds me of Seneca’s essay “On Anger.” Seneca warns that anger is “a madness of the soul,” urging us to remember how short life is and how foolish it is to waste it on hatred. Yet, in some impassioned pages of the same work, Seneca himself expressed anger at the follies and cruelties of humanity. That paradox—condemning anger while writing with anger—is the same tension Rufai embodies: moral outrage born from a love for justice.

Rufai’s anger was directed not at Umahi as an individual but at what Umahi symbolizes: the Tinubu administration’s arrogance and detachment from the suffering of ordinary Nigerians. The other day, I traveled to Asaba, and the dual carriage road through the town was nearly impassable. We spent hours crawling along a stretch of road that should have taken minutes. That is the reality Rufai was protesting.

He is frustrated that vital roads across the country remain unfinished while the government preoccupies itself with a so-called coastal highway—borrowing trillions for it and chaining the next generation to debt. His anger, therefore, was a form of protest, a way of using the platform available to him to speak for millions who have been silenced by hardship and hopelessness.

As for Umahi, he epitomizes a troubling brand of leadership. Even as Governor of Ebonyi State, he often stood against the collective interests of his own people in both word and action. He is consistently driven by selfishness. His unprovoked attacks on Mr. Peter Obi reveal the pettiness of a man who confuses power with wisdom.

That is why we need more voices like Rufai’s—courageous, unapologetic, and unyielding. Nigeria’s revolution will not come through polite silence but through the righteous indignation of men and women who still care enough to be angry.

Are you angry? I am!