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Friday, March 29, 2024

#SoundOff: So Buhari Bullied The Telegraph UK Over His Interview…

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by Viola Okolie

Meanwhile, have you ever wondered why the budget for the Ministry of Information is THAT much? Scratch the first five words and replace with “still wondering why…”.

The Telegraph runs a first publication which is an interview with the Nigerian President whom we all know for his lack of tact or what his acolytes (otherwise known as Hailing Hailers) refer to as “brutal honesty”.

Case in point: 97:5 gaffe when asked a question on “inclusive governance” in the United States.

Second case in point: Outburst over the ceaseless detention of suspects in defiance of court orders on live TV during the Presidential Media Chat.

You can find scores of other cases in point. When faced with cameras and live on air, our number one citizen is blessed with the curse of diplomatic naivete and gaps in communication that have the potency of an unexpected punch in the solar plexus.

As expected, there is an outrage amongst well meaning Nigerians. Not because we “hate the President”, but because for long, decent and hardworking individuals have suffered painful discrimination as a result of the negative stereotypes that overshadow the positives.

How often have we complained about Christine Ohuruogu being a “Briton of Nigerian parentage” but those rabid murderers Michael(s) Adebolajo and Adebowale being referred to straight up as Nigerians?

These profilings happen for a purpose, but Nigerians contribute their sweat and blood to sustain these economies and plough their earnings back home to also sustain ours. Anyway I look at migration, it is a win-win for Nigeria.

So the outrage swells and the #NigeriansAreNotCriminals‬ trend rightly protests that our nation’s chief image maker should not be so dangerously flippant when the situation requires oodles of tact. I would tell you one or two things about selling – no product is perfect. But a good salesman talks up the good in his product and of the drawbacks, he either sells the positives in them or tries to explain them via-a-vis the good. Trust me, I know a lot about sales.

Anyway, the outrage rises and swells beyond the expected proportions with people speaking up ACROSS PARTY LINES AND POLITICAL INCLINATIONS, doing for free the job the image maker failed at (discount the Hailing Hailers, I suspect they are all robots and when they are switched on, automatically start clapping at any and every, and put up updates confessing their criminal propensities).

Then a couple of days after the initial publication, The Telegraph publishes ANOTHER article which they claim to be the original and unedited version of the first which sparked the outrage. In it, the offending outbursts have been treated to a strong spray of sesorobia.

Now ask yourself what the possible scenarios are:

1. The Telegraph made an honest attempt to sell sensation at the expense of fact with their first publication and never believed it would receive the sort of backlash and protest it did – enter publication 2 to save the day.

2. The Telegraph published as interviewed but the Nigerian god of Mischief, Malaprop and Misinformation has a large and extremely healthy budget and was able to use that to convince the journal to insert some tact after the fact – enter article 2 to save the day.

Whichever of these options you feel inclined to believe, let me give the process of choosing a helping hand…

Dwell for a minute on the Dramatis Personnae of this little drama of the past few days. Now read the two scenarios again and tell me which of them you are likely to believe.

So, if you have been flinging around the second publication from The Telegraph as evidence that we are expressing unnecessary outrage, then the propagandist in charge of the nation’s communications is making good use of the cowries in the public purse allocated to him.

God bless Nigeria!

Viola Okolie is a popular social media activist. She is a member of the People’s Democratic Party and a graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. Connect with her on Facebook.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. 

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