I have watched Rufai’s encounter with Minister Umahi countless times and followed the reactions that trailed it. Rufai represents the kind of journalist Nigeria desperately needs today — one who speaks truth without disguise, fear, or favour. Many politicians dread him because even the very ground he walks on seems to spark fire that burns 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 journalism laced with urgency, outrage, and moral fire. He had to shout and insist — because our leaders have selective hearing.
Is he too confrontational? Perhaps. But how else can truth be heard in a land where lies sit comfortably in power? Soft tones have been tried, and they have failed. For decades, journalists have spoken with polite caution while corruption grew fat and impunity strutted unashamed. A nation deafened by hypocrisy needs a voice that dares to challenge Ministers openly.
Does he go too far sometimes? Maybe. But what is “too far” in a country where leaders drive through potholes they refuse to fix, where promises of change dissolve into excuses, and where the poor are told to tighten belts already cutting into their flesh? In such a place, moderation easily becomes complicity.
Should journalism be passionate? Absolutely — passionately moral, passionately honest, 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 of it.
I admire what the Arise team is doing. Should journalists fear being accused of bias when they speak truth to power? Only if silence has ever saved a nation. True journalism is not neutrality between truth and falsehood; it is loyalty to justice and accountability. Rufai’s manner may unsettle the comfortable, but it comforts the afflicted — those whose lives bear the weight of bad governance.
Is anger unprofessional? Not when it springs from integrity. There is anger that destroys, and there is anger that redeems — the kind that drives reform, exposes hypocrisy, and awakens a nation’s conscience. Rufai’s anger belongs to the latter kind: guided by reason, tempered by truth, and purified by purpose.
In his exchange with Minister Umahi, Rufai was right. He spoke not just as a journalist but as a citizen burdened by the nation’s endless decay. His anger was not personal; it was national — a reflection of our collective frustration. His righteous indignation brings to mind Seneca’s essay *On Anger*. Seneca called anger “a madness of the soul,” yet even he, in condemning anger, wrote with anger at the follies and cruelties of men. That paradox — condemning anger while driven by it — mirrors Rufai’s own tension: moral outrage born of love for justice.
Rufai’s anger was not directed at Umahi the man, but at what he represents — the Tinubu administration’s arrogance and detachment from the suffering of ordinary Nigerians.
Recently, I travelled through Asaba, and the dual carriageway was nearly impassable. We spent hours crawling along a stretch that should have taken minutes. That is the reality Rufai protested — that vital roads remain undone while the government pours trillions into a coastal highway project, borrowing recklessly and chaining future generations to debt.
His anger, therefore, was a form of protest — a voice for millions silenced by hardship and hopelessness.
As for Umahi, he embodies a troubling style of leadership. Even as Governor of Ebonyi State, he often acted against the interests of his own people. His unprovoked attacks on Peter Obi revealed a pettiness born of selfishness — a man who confuses power with wisdom.
That is why we need more voices like Rufai’s: courageous, unapologetic, and unbending. 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.
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