Former Minister of Aviation, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, last week, bit more than he could chew, when he called a journalist stupid for daring to ask how his current tour of some PDP states in the South-south for peer review was being financed. For over two minutes, FFK as he is otherwise called, took the reporter to the cleaners, because according to him, he was short-fused.
Thankfully, Fani-Kayode got back in multiple folds and from various quarters, what he dished out to the reporter. Everyone agreed he went overboard even if he found the question offensive and said too much to someone merely doing his job.
The following day after the heat from different quarters increased heavily, he gave a subtle apology and took back the word ‘stupid’, which he used repeatedly to describe the reporter, while many had hoped he would fix his ‘short fuse attitudinal crisis’ and stop putting himself in unsavoury corners. Perhaps, he’s learnt his lessons.
That said, it is also important for journalists too to know that the right to ask probing questions is not the same as licence to being indecorous or ill-mannered, when talking to people. This is a disposition many journalists assume as right and often get carried away in the line of duty. It is therefore expected that the journalist and others had a thing or two to learn from that experience too.
