British Press Fascinated By Alex Badeh’s Indictment

In most African countries, a new government comes into power and starts to unearth atrocities committed by the old regime. It’s nothing new, the world press is used to that trend and they no longer waste their column space on such news stories because they know there will only be two outcomes: one, the culprit will be cleared of all the charges despite overwhelming evidence against him or two, he gets a slap on the wrist and a few years time, when another government gets into power, he bags another political appointment.

However, they could not ignore the indictment of former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshall Alex Badeh because of its connection to the missing Chibok girls and Boko Haram.

Here is how a national UK daily, The Telegraph reported it:

Nigeria’s former defence chief accused of using Boko Haram cash to buy mansion

In smaller prints:

“Alex Badeh vowed to break militants’ hold on Nigeria within months but now stands accused of siphoning off money meant for the fight against them”

One can only imagine being a fly on the wall when that story was being written. The unprintable conversations the oyinbo journalists would have been having amongst themselves.

“So while the whole world was having sleepless nights over Boko Haram especially after they became affiliated with Isis, the f*&%ing b&%£%*s who were responsible for fighting the terrorists were helping themselves to the money meant for fighting them”

The Telegraph reminded its readers of how closely linked to the fight against Boko Haram Badeh is:

“He made headlines by vowing, in January 2014, to “wrap up” the activities of the militant group by April. “Don’t worry, Nigerians should have faith in their military,” he told a press conference. “The nation will win this war.”

In April however the military was in disarray, with soldiers mutinying over a lack of equipment, and more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted from the town of Chibok.”

They even went as far as looking for an appropriate picture to capture their thoughts:

In this picture taken while the former CDS was addressing a press conference after the Chibok girls were abducted you can see the Naval officer standing to Badeh’s left (right of the picture) looking at him as if, “you effing liar, you have no plans of rescuing the girls because you have used the money to build a shopping mall and a mansion.”

Trust the BBC to join in the fun. Their caption was simple and straightforward: Nigerian ex-defence chief Alex Badeh ‘stole $20m’ accompanied with a picture of him looking like Idi Amin

The Guardian, another widely respected national daily in the UK were less sensational with their own headline:

Former Nigerian defence chief denies £10m fraud charges

Then in smaller print: “Air Marshall Alex Badeh is accused of using money allocated for the air force to buy a mansion and to build a shopping mall”

The Guardian didn’t mention Boko Haram or the Chibok girls like the Telegraph but informed their readers of his military credentials: “He was appointed chief of air staff in 2013 and promoted to chief of defence staff in 2014”.

In other words, “how could a man who rose to the highest political position a soldier could attain in a civilian government turn out to be a common criminal?”