Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s Special Assistant on Public Communications, Phrank Shaibu, has lambasted the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, over its fact-check report wherein it stated that there was no evidence to show that President Bola Tinubu’s Chicago State University was forged.
In a statement on Wednesday, Shaibu described the resort as a hatchet job, adding that the outrage it had solicited from the generality of Nigerians was enough evidence to show that the BBC goofed.
Atiku’s aide said the BBC’s move was not surprising as it was in line with a previous statement he had issued wherein he had revealed that the Tinubu administration was set to unleash its full propaganda programme.
He said, “Sometime last week, when the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) issued a final warning to Arise News TV, we pointed out that the Tinubu administration was on the verge of launching a full blown propaganda and also intimidating ‘uncooperative’ media houses into discrediting and downplaying the CSU scandal. Sadly, we never imagined that it would be the BBC that would become the willing tool.
“It is unconscionable, appalling and preposterous that in this current information age, a foreign medium of repute could try to bamboozle Nigerians with a jaundiced report when the details are clear for everyone to see. Thank God young Nigerians have begun filing complaints against the hack writers who decided to soil their names for a bowl of porridge.
“We are not ignorant of the machinations of the BBC and its bias towards the current government. It is unfortunate that the BBC is not upholding the same standards as they would uphold in the UK where a Prime Minister was forced out of office for hosting a party during COVID-19. In 2009, columnist Mehdi Hasan wrote in the New Statesman that the BBC was biased ‘towards power and privilege, tradition and orthodoxy.’
“It is no wonder that in the last one year, the only news medium that was given exclusive access to interview Tinubu was the BBC. It is sickening that the BBC has decided to surrender its platform to a man who was accused of illegal drug trafficking in the United States.”
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Shaibu called on the BBC and other fact-checkers to be more circumspect, adding that their job was too sensitive to entertain errors.
In the meantime, Shaibu has lambasted President Tinubu for holding just one cabinet meeting since taking office 135 days ago.
He said it was ironic that Tinubu, who had the largest cabinet in Nigeria’s history, had decided not to meet with them.
Atiku’s aide said, “Tinubu is obviously not ready for governance. After appointing 48 ministers – the highest in history – he has decided not to be meeting with them. This contravenes Section 148(2) of the 1999 Constitution, which expressly provides that the President shall hold regular meetings with the Vice President and ministers for the purposes of determining domestic and foreign policies of the government.
“It is bad enough that a man who claimed he would hit the ground running from day one took over 60 days to name all his ministers and took 84 days to inaugurate them. Even now, he has held only one cabinet meeting since the inauguration of the cabinet. For a man who has been gallivanting all over the place purportedly in search of foreign investors, it is laughable that he cannot even meet with his own team at home. Meanwhile, concerned Nigerians are asking #WhereIsTinubu?”
