Tag: #Agba Jalingo

 

Government has been accusing citizens and the press of peddling “Fake News” and pushing multi-pronged efforts to suffocate channels of information dissemination.

I agree,

It is true that there is #FakeNews.

It is true that individuals are peddling #FakeNews.

It is true that the media is peddling #FakeNews

It is also true that #FakeNews is doing incalculable damage not just to society but also to public trust in the media profession.

It is also true that the media space needs to self-regulate to weed out #FakeNews.

But there is one truth also that is missing from this whole gamut.

That is, Government is the biggest peddler of #FakeNews.

What effort is been made to ensure that #FakeNews from government is curbed?

Who should be the fall guy or fall babe when government peddles #FakeNews?

In the various #SocialMediaBills pushed around, what are the prescribed punishments for #FakeNews from government?

Why does GOVERNMENT, who is arguably the biggest dispenser of #FakeNews, feel that it has a duty to control something it is as guilty of, as those it accuses?

Let me give you some examples of what I am talking about.

1. Every home in Nigeria got COVID 19 palliative – Humanitarian Affairs Minister. #FakeNews

2. Only 10 Kankara school boys were abducted – Shehu Garba #FakeNews

3. Boko Haram has been technically defeated – Buhari #FakeNews

4. I have created 20,000 new jobs in Cross River civil service – Ayade #FakeNews

5. Our government is doing everything to fight corruption – Buhari #FakeNews

6. Fashola finds camera a #LekkiTollGate – #FakeNews

7. Nobody died at #LekkiTollGate – FG
#FakeNews

8. Government is not fixing fuel prices, the sector has been deregulated – FG #FakeNews

When all these offensive lies are dished out to the public by a government, who should be held accountable and with what legal instrument?

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo

In Nigeria, Count The Cost Before You Ask For Power To Your Region

Under OBJ:

While former President Olusegun Obasanjo, from the South West region was in power, Human Rights Watch said in a report released in February 28, 2003 that, “the O’odua People’s Congress (OPC), an organization based in the south west, has killed or injured thousands of people over the last few years.” The 58-page report, “The O’odua People’s Congress: Fighting Violence with Violence,” provides detailed accounts of killings and other abuses by the OPC from when the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo took power in 1999.

According to the report, “testimonies gathered by Human Rights Watch, confirmed that the OPC had played a central role in the violence in Ajegunle. In other cases, OPC members publicly killed and mutilated alleged criminals in the course of their vigilante work in the south west. They also attacked and killed policemen.” Obasanjo, a Yoruba man, got so frustrated and angry that in 1999, he declared a ban on the OPC, which I doubt has been lifted.

Under Yar’adua:

Upon his death, the Time Magazine of Thursday, May 06, 2010 said Obasanjo’s successor, former President Umaru Musa Yar’adua “did not look like the most promising of leaders.” He died and left behind a ceasefire and amnesty deal with militants in the oil rich Niger Delta and a Taliban style Islamic terrorist group in his northern part of the country. In fact, it was President Yar’Adua, a northerner, who first ordered a military crackdown on Boko Haram in 2009 following the group’s daring attacks on sensitive locations in his own northern Nigeria.

Under GEJ:

When former President Goodluck Jonathan took over, though violent agitations and militancy had been preponderant in the Niger Delta region where Jonathan comes from, his rise to power also saw the rise of violence again to the peak in the Niger Delta region with thousands of deaths and economic sabotage that nearly crippled the oil producing communities. His own region became one of the most violent in the world with near daily records of kidnapping for ransom, deaths and pipeline sabotage. By the time he left, thousands had been killed in the Niger Delta.

Under GMB:

Until General Buhari took power, Katsina was very scanty in the news, even with religious extremism. But since Buhari took over, not just northern Nigeria, but even his own home state, Katsina has become inhabitable as it were. Even after signing peace deals with the criminals, the State and the federal government are overwhelmed by the audacity of militia leaders who incessantly abduct, rape, raid, maim, kill and enslave thousands in Katsina and neighbouring states. These are things that hitherto, couldn’t be imagined in Katsina until their son became President and chief security officer of the country.
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With this trend, it is possible to extrapolate that the next region that will produce the next President should also include in their plan, how they will deal with violent insurgency from their own people especially. Their governors should also start preparing to count bodies and include insurgency appeasement bills and amnesty plans in their budgets.

This way, the country can consolidate and boast of her “enviable achievement” from rotational presidency and cement her place as one of the most flourishing AK47 economies in the world.

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.