Mainstream opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said on Wednesday, that the banning of some major media houses from covering activities in Nigeria’s Presidential Villa was unjustified.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, had in a statement on Tuesday restricted the coverage of activities in the Villa to 13 media organisations excluding AIT, Arise TV, STV, Ben TV and others.
Also excluded were reporters from The Punch, ThisDay, Tribune, The Guardian, Vanguard, Daily Trust and other major newspapers, while few of them were allowed to send in their photographers.
In the statement, Adesina attributed the decision to part of the measures being taken to curtail the spread of coronavirus.
He explained that Channels TV, NTA, TVC, News Agency of Nigeria, Sun Newspaper, Voice of Nigeria, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, and photographers of ThisDay, The Guardian, Leadership, Vanguard and Daily Trust, would remain to cover the Villa for a yet-to-be specified period.
But, in a statement issued, on Tuesday, the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, dismissed Adesina’s explanations.
Ologbondiyan described the restrictions placed on major media houses as a most heinous form of official victimisation executed in bad faith.
According to him, this decision by the Buhari government is highly detestable, undemocratic and totally against the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), the Freedom of Information Act, as well as the tenets and guiding principles of rule of law.
Ologbondiyan said, “This is therefore not the time for unnecessary pettiness, victimisation and barring of media houses, a development which has sparked suspicion in the public space as being designed to conceal certain facts from the public.
“It is indeed instructive for the Buhari Presidency to note that our nation is in dire need of hope and direction contained in timely information, especially from the government.”
“Clamping down on the media, which is a critical stakeholder in the effort to defeat COVID-19, was completely at variance with national interest.
Ologbondiyan further said, “What our nation needs now is for all hands on deck, with those in power shelving their pettiness, parochial interests, pointless and unreasonable ego as we collectively seek for solutions.
“The PDP, therefore, charges the Presidency to, immediately and without any further delay, lift the ban on the affected media houses and allow them to discharge their responsibility to the Nigerian people in line with the provisions of the law and their professional requirements.
“Moreover, the PDP frowns on the Federal Government cancelling its Tuesday media briefing on the COVID-19, thereby denying Nigerians very vital information in the process. The party urges the Federal Government to exert itself and seek more concerted efforts in the fight against the pandemic.”