Lai Mohammed Warns Nigerian Media Against Using Reports By Foreign Counterparts

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has warned local news outlets against using reports about Nigeria by foreign mediums.

Mohammed said it was an anomaly for local newspapers, TV and radio stations to rely on or allow their foreign counterparts to tell the Nigerian story for them.

The minister was referring to how some foreign news mediums, including CNN, covered the recent #EndSARS protests, especially the Lekki toll gate shooting where an undetermined number of unarmed protesters were said to have been killed by soldiers.

Meanwhile, THE WHISTLER recalls that the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), which is a broadcast regulator under Mohammed’s ministry, had imposed fines on three local TV stations for using videos from the alleged shooting incident in their reporting.

But speaking during the commissioning of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria 89.3 FM station in Oko, Oyo State, on Saturday, the minister blamed poor coverage of the #EndSARS protests by local outlets for alleged distortion of facts by their foreign counterparts.

He said, “Please permit me to use the occasion of this commissioning to challenge broadcast media in Nigeria to take the lead in telling the Nigerian story, especially by informing the people about the various projects of government and their impact on the people.

“A situation in which foreign broadcast stations arrogate to themselves the power to tell our own story gives room for distortion of facts, the type of which we saw recently when CNN reported that 38 people were killed at the Lekki Toll Gate during the EndSARS crisis, only to backtrack and review the number to one – after 35 days of what it called exclusive investigation.

“A situation in which the local media will rely and quote a foreign broadcast media, for an event that happened in Nigeria, is an anomaly. It has to stop,” he said.

While the Nigerian Army, whose soldiers were accused of killing unarmed protesters, has continued to downplay the shooting incident, Arise News, in an exclusive report on Friday, revealed more families of victims allegedly killed at the toll gate and as well as those who sustained gunshot wounds during the alleged shooting incident.

The Chief of Army Staff, Tukur Buratai, had during the decoration of newly promoted army generals last week, insisted that no protester was killed at the toll gate.

Buratai said, “I must say that the spiritual warfare had helped us during the last #EndSARS protest to the extent that when there were no corpses, some persons were seeing ‘double’ and imaginary corpses at Lekki toll gate in Lagos state.”