Swinton’s ghost and the Kila in us all

John Swinton died in 1901. But this week, he walked into our newsrooms and our national consciousness and refused to leave.

Swinton was Chief of Staff of The New York Times. In 1880, at a banquet in New York, someone proposed a toast to the independent press. Swinton rose and punctured the illusion.

“There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, in America, as an independent press.” Then he made the confession that has haunted journalism for nearly a century and a half. “We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. They pull the strings, and we dance.”

Finally, he delivered the line that secured his place in history: “We are intellectual prostitutes.”

Most people quote Swinton as an attack on journalists. It was much more than that. It was an attack on systems that reward appearance above substance, access above integrity, and patronage above truth.

That is why the controversy surrounding Anthony Kila is bigger than Anthony Kila. It is a parable about all of us.

According to a recent investigation by Premium Times, Mr Kila, who for years has been introduced on television, in newspapers and at public events as “Professor Anthony Kila” and “Jean Monnet Professor of Strategy and Development,” could not be linked to any recognised institution that awarded him a professorial rank.

The same investigation reported that the institution he cited as conferring the title, the European Centre for Advanced and Professional Studies, could not be verified, while the European agency responsible for the Jean Monnet programme reportedly had no record of the claimed title.

Further checks revealed that nine of the 22 works on his Google Scholar page were written by other people. When confronted, the university where he serves as Pro-Chancellor, Michael and Cecilia Ibru University in Delta State, said it “has no evidence” that he is not a professor.

That sentence reverses the burden of proof. The burden ordinarily rests on the person claiming the title. That, however, remains the Kila conundrum.

Whether the matter ultimately ends in vindication or condemnation is not my immediate concern. My concern is different. How did so many intelligent people accept a claim so consequential for so long without scrutiny?

How did television stations, newspapers, universities, conference organisers and public officials repeat a title year after year – for ten solid years – without asking elementary questions?

Professor where? By whom? Under whose authority? Which university senate approved the appointment? The answers matter.

But the more important question is why nobody seemed interested in asking. Why the collective amnesia? The Yoruba say, A kì í wo aṣọ ẹni tó ń san gbèsè ẹni. Literally, we do not inspect the garment of the man paying our debt.

The proverb is not about debt. It is about convenience. When someone gives us what we need, we stop asking inconvenient questions.

Kila gave us what modern media desperately craves: soundbites. Fluency. Confidence. Indeed, overconfidence and complacency. Television presence.

Here was Anthony Kila, who could discuss Hobbes and Albert Einstein at breakfast, Rousseau and Maslow at lunch, and Jesus Christ with Prophet Mohammed plus elections at dinner.

For him, debt management, public enterprise and the desiderata for good governance round the clock were a piece of cake. But in terms of research paperwork, he is a tragedy. He has no certificate to back his professed resourcefulness.

Yes, he was useful. And usefulness often enjoys privileges that truth does not.

Let me be clear. I know Anthony Kila to be intelligent. That is precisely why the affair is troubling. A man with evident intellect should not need borrowed robes.

That observation probably misses the deeper problem. Perhaps the question is not why Kila allegedly needed the title. Perhaps the question is why we insist on titles before we listen.

In Nigeria, “Mr Anthony Kila” appears on a panel. “Professor Anthony Kila” appears on a stage. One offers opinions. The other dispenses wisdom. One is heard. The other is believed. That difference explains more about us than it does about him.

Anthony Kila did not create the market. He merely operated within it. Every society gets the impostors it rewards.

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When a society rewards titles more than scholarship, title merchants emerge. When it rewards wealth more than enterprise, wealth merchants emerge.

When it rewards influence more than achievement, influence peddlers emerge. Markets always produce what customers demand.

The real story, therefore, is not Anthony Kila. The real story is the Kila in all of us. The businessman who inflates his turnover. The politician who inflates his achievements. The academic who inflates his publications.

The traditional ruler who inflates his history. The pastor who inflates his miracles. The journalist who inflates his independence. The judge who perverts justice. Every profession has its Kilas.

And the public applauds. We always do, without reservation.

Some wear robes. Some wear agbada. Some wear cassocks. Some wear press tags. Others wear lab coats. The Yoruba also say, Bí ebi bá wọ inú iṣẹ́, iṣẹ́ a bàjẹ́. When hunger enters work, work becomes corrupted. That, perhaps, is the most accurate translation of our circumstance.

Look around the newsrooms. That is what corrupt public office holders exploit. Many media houses struggle to pay salaries. Reporters fund assignments from their pockets. Editors face school fees, rent and medical bills.

Publishers survive through patronage. Awards become businesses. Supplements and special projects become products. Editorial judgement begins to compete with commercial necessity.

It is in such an environment that Swinton’s ghost thrives. The hungry man compromises. The compromised man rationalises. The rationalising man eventually forgets where compromise ended, and conviction began.

Soon everyone is dancing. And because everyone is dancing, nobody notices the strings. That was Swinton’s point in 1880. It remains our problem in 2026. Yet despair would be lazy.

There are still reporters who refuse envelopes – brown or white. I know of an accounting graduate turned journalist who rejected such gratification and received a letter of commendation from the veteran journalist who offered it.

It became a step towards that reporter’s elevation, and to this day he sits atop one of the most enduring private newspapers in the country. That is how to kill the “kila” in us before the “Kilas” around us steal away our ethical steeze and future.

There are still editors who reject inducements. There are still media organisations that insist on verification even when verification is costly. They offer no awards in order to concentrate on their watchdog role.

The Premium Times investigation itself is evidence that journalism can still perform its highest duty: scrutiny without fear or favour. But the lesson should not end with one man’s title. That would be far too small.

The lesson concerns a nation increasingly addicted to appearance, to façade. We admire certificates before competence. We admire titles before character. We admire positions before performance. We admire packaging before content.

Then we feign surprise when the packaging proves hollow. Our elders remind us with a proverb: a borrowed garment is worn with unease. If it is not too short, it hangs too loose. Either way, it never truly fits.

Most people will read that proverb and think of Anthony Kila. They should not. They should think of themselves.

How many borrowed garments are we wearing? How many credentials, reputations, loyalties, ideologies and identities exist simply because the market rewards them?

How often do we perform rather than become? That reminds me of the many “incomings,” “Honourables,” “Apostles,” “Mallams” and the most ridiculous of all, “PhD (awaiting).”

Fake doctors everywhere because honoris causa is for sale. We are Epicurean by nature. We have heard of “Professor-Master” in this country from illiterate musicians and their ilk who love titles but cannot discipline themselves for the academic rigours they entail. How often do we pretend rather than build? Those are the questions that matter.

For the real scandal is not that one man may have worn a borrowed robe. The real scandal is that an entire society has become dependent on borrowed robes.

John Swinton understood this long ago. The greatest threat to truth is not the liar. It is the culture that makes lying profitable.

Until we stop rewarding appearance and start rewarding authenticity, new Anthony Kilas will continue to emerge. And each time they do, we should remember an uncomfortable truth: the Kila we condemn in public often survives because of the Kila we tolerate within ourselves.