RUFAI OSENI: An Interviewer’s Penchant to Take, versus an Interviewee’s Reluctance to Give
By Olusola Ajiboye,
Rufai Oseni often attracts attention in good measure to himself, by his passion to dig deeper into issues of news value he comes across or are presented for his perusal, engagement, investigation and discourse.
Like a journalist who persistently wants to know, the five (5) Ws of News appear to have shaped his style and method of eliciting information from his guests.
His style always put him at loggerheads with many of his guests.
As a Co-Anchor on “The Morning Show” a Current Affairs presentation and Interview Programme, Rufai’s interviews cut deep like a razor blade to get the meat of a story or a trending news of public importance.
He employs his fluency and knowledge of issues he wants his guests to shed light on by throwing follow up questions unabatedly at them, sometimes to their chargin. Rufai’s engagement style garners kudos and knocks from viewers depending on which side of the divide they belong.
To some, the Arise TV Anchor is just an overreaching egotist who preys on the weakness of his guests to bring them to ridicule.
Those who hold this view tagged his most recent interview with Works Minister David Umahi, “A public flogging of the Minister”. Some commentators dismissed the interview as lacking issue based contents while others described it as relevant to the day to day operations and house style of Arise TV.
The most-contentious feedback of the Rufai-Umahi interview was an altercation which quoted the TV Anchor to have asked the works’Minister to keep Quiet! But this has been found incorrect. What Rufai actually said during the interview was, “please can you be quiet and listen to me? Investigations reveal that it was the Minister who told Rufai to keep quiet.
The October 7th 2025 Edition of ‘The Morning Show” has trended largely due to the choice of words employed in the interview which drew different innumerable flanks on the Social media, including calls for an NBC hammer on Arise TV and Rufai, for “combativeness” and “arrogance”
Trained Journalists don’t condescend or allow guests dominate or hijack interviews and programmes they anchor but expected as communicators, to cultivate their guests to get what they want from them.
Experience do show how hard some guests can be.
This writer as a Reporter did encounter (in line of duty) a good number of puffy, heady and outrightly uncouth guests.
Most of the current generation of politicians in Nigeria are guilty of infringements on basic communication codes and media interface. But little do these political office holders know that a journalist is trained to extract water from stone. So, if a Reporter hammers on a point by strings of follow up questions, all he’s after,is the kernel of a story of significant public interest.
The Coastal Highway project is eliciting a frenzy of interests by newshounds because of the humungous public funds being committed to its construction and the controversies around the contract itself.
A Journalist’s professional obligation demands detailed explanation from the Minister of Works on the pattern and differentials in expenditure relating to costs per kilometer, number of bridges, flyovers, ancillary features and others, factored as necessary for public consumption.
Nigeria has a robust and active media. The country has birthed inquisitive journalists like Rufai who never get tired of extracting every morsel of information from those in charge of her resource management. Public officers need to be on ground always, for answers to sundry questions from the media.
No minister is to be caught napping in engagement with Reporters anywhere, anytime either organized or impromptu.
David Umahi is one of the few ministers in Tinubu’s government who has exhibited competence for the job. But can he expect a kid-glove treatment from Journalists? No.
Media Practitioners are among the most daring human species God created. This perhaps explains why pen-pushers not only fish in troubled waters but tread where Angels tremble. Spectacular events around the world might not have been known if journalists did not dare the high risks of reporting such events and the dramatis personnel behind them.
Sniffing for News, harvesting information and reportage,thrive in a competition to be the first to break the news.
The Nigerian Elite class, particularly political office holders are always reluctant to speak to the press even if official responsibilities make it obligatory. When they can’t avoid the press, they leverage on security and ‘My Oga at the top’ to dodge questions from Reporters. Nigerians once witnessed how a former Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo wrestled with a Reporter’s microphone on National Television to avoid being interviewed.
The embarrassing drama was sequel to an innocuous request by the then Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida to NTA State House Correspondent Segun Aderiye. “Segun, can you get something out of the General”? whereupon the visiting former leader retorted comically.. “If he succeeds, it means he is a better Segun than I.”
Did I say the more a Journalist cultivates his guests the more he gets from them? Nothing can be right more than this.
To squeeze words from men with tight lips and withered hands is to bait them. An interviewer thus needs to offer honey instead of cake in pursuit of facts.
Olusola Ajiboye is a veteran Journalist and Media Consultant based in Osogbo, South-West, Nigeria.