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JAMES Moore, in his forward in Family of Secrets, a book written by Russ Baker, captured the role of journalists in informing society about politicians. According to Moore: “When a governor or any state official seeks elective national office, his (or her) reputation and what the country knows about the candidate’s background is initially determined by the work of local and regional media. Generally, those journalists do a competent job of reporting on the prospect’s record.”  In the case of David Mark, Senate president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, much of what Nigerians know about him has been largely shaped by the media. So much publicity has been given to his activities right from when he was in the military as governor of Niger State and minister of communications to the time he joined the murky waters of Nigerian politics. The information in the public domain about Mark is varied. There had been statements he made which generated controversy and outraged some right thinking people like when he called for a state of emergency to be declared in the south-east at the height of the kidnapping saga in the region. Of recent, there were speculations about his presidential ambition which he has publicly denied. In all the media coverage, none has specifically focused on Mark’s business empire and how he made his money which he has been using to fund his political activities and endow a scholarship scheme given that he retired as a brigadier-general from the military and nobody could readily trace the businesses he is involved and which have been shrouded in secrecy. In our quest to unravel the real Mark, who has superintended over the affairs of the Senate since 2007, we ran into bumps created mostly by his media aides who thought we were doing a hatchet job on him because we asked pertinent questions about the sources of his finances and some of his investments abroad. What the aides may not understand is that Mark is a public officer who deserves public scrutiny at all times. Notwithstanding, the threats and accusations  of blackmail from Paul Mumeh, media aide to Mark, we consider it as part of our social responsibility to inform the public of our findings in this edition of our cover story entitled: “David Mark: The Man and His Secrets”. It was jointly written by Maureen Chigbo, editor and Augustine Adah, staff writer. Enjoy it.

Maureen Chigbo
Editor

— Dec. 10, 2012 @ 01:00 GMT