Ali Baba, April Fool’s And The Media

Though his real name is Atunyota Alleluya Akpobome, he is better known and addressed as Ali Baba. For close to three decades, he has been in the entertainment industry where he is regarded as one of the leading comedians and entertainers that Nigeria has ever produced. On Monday April 1^st, Ali Baba made a fool of some of us in the media industry when he announced that he and his wife recently gave birth to triplets.

Writing on his verified Instagram page to his over one million followers, Atunyota wrote: “Mary and I are happy and overjoyed to welcome our 3 sons, Aaron, Aalexander, and Aandrew, into the Akpobome family. It’s been 2 months since they arrived, and as the days go by, we thank God Almighty for these 3 beautiful blessings. We also want to thank our sisters, brothers, friends, uncles, and aunties for all the support so far. We appreciate and thank you immensely for all your prayers, love, best wishes, and gifts. As we celebrate the essence of the Resurrection power in this period of Easter, we join our faith with yours and pray that things of joy will never be far from you. God will make all that needs to arise, to arise in your favour in this Holy period of reawakening. On behalf of the Akpobomes, again, thank you.”

Many of his colleagues in the entertainment industry took to his comment section on Instagram to congratulate him and his wife on the safe delivery of the triplets and to wish the babies well. Others who knew that it was a joke simply laughed their heads off with emojis.

But some media practitioners, in their bid to ‘beat’ others to the ‘news’, did not wait or even care to verify the report before rushing to publish. Within an hour, the whole of the social media was awash with the news. Online publications, including many reputable media outlets, fell for the joke. It wasn’t long before other reputable print mediaalso published the joke that became a news item. The 58-year-old comedian was having a ball at the expense of the media. By the time many realised what was happening, it left a sore taste in the mouth and they had no other option than to pull down the story. Ali Baba posted a joke on April 1st, a day known internationally as April Fool’s Day, but we in the media fell for it. It was simplyan April Fool’s prank.

In far away United States of America, it was the turn of a renowned Kenyan International journalist, Larry Madowo to also play a prank on his followers. In a tweet shared on April Fool’s Day, Madowo announced: ‘Personal news: After three exhilarating years at CNN, I’m thrilled to share that I’ve returned to BBC in Washington. Thanks for the ride.’ Madowo had previously worked at the BBC before joining CNN and the news of the return was a surprise to many of his followers, who congratulated him on his supposed return to the BBC. However, a few hours later, Madowo clarified that the announcement was, in fact, a joke. “This was an April Fool’s joke. I’m still at CNN. But my last job was at BBC in Washington, and this is a real photo from 2020”,  Madowo clarified.

While Madowo was having a ball at the expense of his followers and fans, his countrymen in Kenya were also having the time of their life at the expense of one of our own entertainers, David Adeleke, a.k.a Davido. A radio station announced that the musician has been arrested for drug trafficking. K24 Digital on Monday 1, April, splashed a story, ‘Nigerian musician, Davido, detained at JKIA after Ksh18M cocaine haul found in his private jet.’  Falling on April Fool’s Day, many recognised it as a joke and ignored it as such. However, the velocity at which the article escalated took many by storm as other news blogs picked it up and it was even republished in numerous online platforms outside Kenya. For a better part of Monday last week, it was the trending story. Butit was a joke that went too far that even The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), in Kenya quickly intervened to save the situation by branding it as ‘Fake News’.

Now, Davido is ready for war as he has instructed his lawyers to sue the radio station. The 31-year-old, who has just finished an East African tour said that the fake report was extremely irresponsible and a joke taken too far. “I have never been arrested by anyone in any country for any crime in the world. Not my home Nigeria, my home America, or any of the hundreds of countries I have made home throughout my career”, he wrote in a statement posted on X. “I want to assure my fans that these reports are entirely untrue. I successfully completed my scheduled shows in Uganda and Kenya and have since returned home to Nigeria”, Davido said. The radio station has come out to say that the story was published in the spirit of April Fool’s and that Davido should not be angry. Whether he would be placated is yet to be seen as Omo Baba Olowo is still sore from the effects of the story at the media outfit.

April 1st is known worldwide as annual day of shenanigans, pranks, tricks and hoaxes. While historians are unsure of the exact source of the tradition, they do know that the custom goes back centuries, at least back to Renaissance Europe and possibly back to Roman times. Some believe April Fools’ Day dates back to Hilaria festivals celebrated during classical Roman times. The festival was held on March 25 which, in Roman terms, was called the “eighth of the Calends of April,” according to the Library of Congress. One theory tying the source of April Fools’ Day to Roman times is also a hoax. In 1983, an Associated Press reporter reached out to Joseph Boskin, a historian at Boston University, to discuss the origins of April Fool’s Day. Boskin spun a tall tale to the reporter, assuming it would be fact-checked and revealed as fake. It wasn’t. According to the story Boskin made up, a group of jesters convinced Emperor Constantine to make one of them king for a day. The appointed jester, named Kugel, declared it would be a day of levity.

Some historians believe France is responsible for the humorous tradition, tying it to a calendar change in 1582, according to the History Channel. That year, France implemented the Gregorian calendar, shifting the start of the New Year from the spring equinox, which usually falls around April 1, to January 1. After the change, people who wrongly celebrated the new year in late March and early April were called ‘April fools’.

However, the first clear reference to April Fool’s Day was a 1561 Flemish poem by Eduard De Dene, which tells the story of a servant being sent on ‘fool’s errands’ because it’s April 1, according to the Library of Congress.

But for the media to fall for the prank of Ali Baba shows how the profession has degenerated. We are always in a rush to break the story instead of observing the time-tested ethics that guide the profession. While it is allowed,though not encouraged, to pick stories from verified media handles of news makers in the society, it will not cost us much to place a call to Ali Baba to confirm if actually, his wife gave birth to triplets. What stops the media from fact-checking the information Ali Baba dished out on his Instagram handle on April Fool’s Day? Why must we rely on information on social media as the gospel truth without confirmation?

Truth be told, the media industry is in crisis and it is time for professionals in the field to sit down and come up with solutions. We cannot continue to hide under one finger believing that all is well with our profession. High cost of producing a Newspaper and low sales, coupled with the advent of online platforms have messed up the print media to the extent that 60 per cent of media houses in Nigeria are no longer paying regular salaries to their staff. Many reporters have been converted to freelancers and their identity cards now consideredas their meal tickets. Series of fact-checking layers in the newsroom that ensured that we got it right in the past are no longer there. The reporter is also now the photographer, proof reader, sub-editor and even the editor as there are no longer supervisors.

If the print industry is on the throes of death, many online platforms are not worth their names asquacks who have little or no training in media work are now claiming to the online publishers. In a bid to eliminate quackery in the industry and ensure that the media gets it right, a non-governmental organisation, Centre for Media and Society(CEMESO), headed by Dr. Akin Akingbulu has been training journalists on digital journalism as well as how to separate facts from fiction among other salient topics. Recently, it organised one of such training in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, where two resource person, Williams Osewezina and David Ajikobi facilitated series of sessions on fact-checking, Understanding Mis/Disinformation, Digital literacy, critical thinking, source verification, cybersecurity, ethical use of technology and several topics.

The two-day event, with the theme: ‘Enhancing Accuracy and Reliability of Information in the Context of Mis/Disinformation’was an eye-opener for many of the journalists at the training programme as it was made crystal clear that media workers need to constantly engage in training and retraining. If we are to survive in today’s fast-paced technological world, media workers in Nigeria would need to stay abreast of what is happening around the globe or the rest of the world will leave us behind.

It is when that is done that, we would be able to recognise the likes of Ali Baba when they come up with their jokes, and we won’t turnthemto news items, thereby misleading our readers.

By Kazeem Akintunde