Media aide Femi Adesina says too much criticism of President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime could plunge the country into confusion, berating Nigerian media for acting like adversaries to the regime.
“The media should partner with the government instead of being adversaries,” Mr Adesina cautioned. “What you find in the media at times is that they are so adversarial to the government, which does not have to be.”
“This is our country, and we don’t have any other one,” Mr Adesina emphasized.
The presidential image maker further asserted that “If they (media) send the country into a tailspin through too much criticism, even the media won’t even be able to do its work,” he added.
Mr Adesina made this statement when he received an award from the management of radio station Love FM 104.5 Abuja, according to a statement by the State House Director of Information, Abiodun Oladunjoye.
The Buhari regime has sought to regulate media outputs the Draconian social media regulations that have repeatedly met a brick wall at the National Assembly. Attacks and threats have become rife against critical media organisations.
In 2017, former Chief of Army Staff and now Nigeria’s ambassador to the Benin Republic, Tukur Buratai, clamped down on Premium Times for refusing to pull down a story thought to be non-patronising of the Nigerian army.
For exposing how the son of Chief of Staff Ibrahim Gambari, Bolaji Gambari, ran a cabal in Aso Rock, the regime ordered telecoms companies to block readers from accessing Peoples Gazette’s website.
In June 2021, Buhari regime banned Twitter for deleting a tweet in which Mr Buhari threatened a repeat of the civil war genocide against young Igbos in the southeastern part of the country, a development that was globally condemned as repressive and anti-democratic.
During #EndSARS anniversary in October 2021, Nigerian police harassed and arrested journalists who covered the protest at the Lekki Tollgate in Lagos.
