*Warn journalists must stand by journalism ethics of truthfulness
“A reporter asked a question about how President Muhammadu Buhari reacts to negative interviews and the write-ups that the media do about him. And the Minister made it clear that the President did not care about negative comments because they were distractions. That he didn’t even bother to read those comments because they were distracting him from his work. That was actually what he said. He did not in any way say the President did not care about Nigerians.”
The purported audio criticism of President Muhammadu Buhari by his Minister of Transport, Chief Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has been exposed to be nothing but a mischief of highest order.
This exposition came as some of the journalists present at the briefing by the Minister gave what the called the correct and untwisted accounts of what he said.
Speaking to a reporter of VoiceTV Nigeria, a digital television on Youtube, watched by The DEFENDER team in Lagos on Sunday, the journalists separately submitted that those who recorded the audio are journalists who attended the meeting and challenged them to release the full audio clips and let Nigerians decide if Amaechi truly said those negative things about his principal or not.
They also called on colleagues who are in journalism for better Nigeria and not for the saboteurs wanting to cause and who still have the recorded tapes to release same just for the sake of truth.
“Prince Bashir Adefaka on Facebook”, a social media opinion platform of a Lagos-based media practitioner, had posted that there would be no comment coming from the concocted audio credited to the Minister until the Minister had spoken on it.
To the owner of the social media platform, “The Amaechi audio is not different from the IGP Idris video which at the end of the day turned out to be mischievous doctoring of the real just run down the IGP because of certain lawmaker. He said the Amaechi audio certainly come from the same source with the fake news reported about Tinubu slumping after President Buhari handed him the full charge of his campaign and which was published by Vanguard and credited to PDP’s Femi Fani-Kayode.”
The social media activist further said that, “the whole of thing is targeted at President Muhammadu Buhari. They saw that Amaechi, despite all their mischief, has been appointed DG of the President’s campaign and that Tinubu is now fully handed the campaign structure of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign. So, what they wanted to do was destroy the relationship between Buhari and Amaechi while also causing disaffection between Fulani and Yoruba race over Tinubu”.
‘I was journalist who asked Amaechi the question’
On the latest revelations, the journalists, whose names were not given however, have their pictures an voices fully captured and aired in the digital television interview.
The first to talk was asked by VoiceTV Nigeria if the audio was doctored or not and he replied:
“Yes. The audio was doctored because we were at that meeting. I think I was the person that even asked the question and the question I asked the Minister then was that, considering the effort of the current administration that does he think Nigeria can become better? And he (the Minister) began to give a narrative. He talked about the era of free money being gone, that those days people would just go to a government office and for political expediencies they would be given N50,000 they would be given N100,000 and they would take that money home, give N10,000 to their wife, give another N10,000 to their driver, use another N10,000 they would just distribute the money to settle domestic problem; and those whom they had given the money would also take it to the market and then spend it.
“He was just painting a scenario of how the money trickled down from government to the poorest, the basic of Nigerian. And he said that right now, what the government has done is that the Federal Government has ensured that the era of free money is over, that you have to work for your money and people do not have the opportunity to dip their hands into government treasury.
“And he now added that because of that, just three years, everybody is saying there is hunger in the land. The traders are saying there is hunger. The farmers are saying there is hunger, because there is no longer free money because Muhammadu Buhari would not condone people dipping theirhands into government purse to touch free money.
“But if you remember that in the audio which was put on the internet, that first part of the narrative was cut off. The only part that was brought out was the part where he says there is hunger in the land, that people are complaining that there is no money and the rest. So, it is very clear that the people who did this did it because they wanted to score certain point.
“I am not a politician. I am a journalist who happened to be at that meeting, who happened to witness the proceedings, who happened to listen to the Minister speak. I am not speaking for the Minister. He has his press people to speak for him.
“But I think that for some of us who were at that meeting, we owe Nigerians to tell them the truth that this was exactly the statement that was made at that meeting.
“So, if certain people are releasing this audio clip and cutting certain parts so that certain parts of that audio will connote a different meaning and they want to sell to Nigerians that this was what was said, then we have to absolutely stand up right now for the truth. Not because we want to support any political party, not because we want to support any political candidate but because we were there.
“We have to come out and say this was exactly what transpired and this was exactly what happened. That is why some of us will continue to say that those audios were doctored.
“To those of them who have the audio, let them do Nigerians a great service by releasing the full audio clips; not just 20 seconds, not just 40 seconds. The Minister talked for over three minutes. Let them release the full audio clips so that Nigerians can decide if indeed he said these statements or not,” the Journalist told VoiceTV Nigerian in the interview.
‘I am speaking because journalism ethics is about truthful presentation’
Another journalist, who was at the meeting with Amaechi, was also asked if the audio was doctored or not and he said:
“I mean it is a clear case. The audio was very, very, very doctored. If you are a media inclined person, if you are a text savvy, you would understand by merely listening to it that the audio was doctored and that there were parts that were taken out of the clips and other parts were allowed to make it seem as if the Minister was actually against his principal which is very, very wrong.
“It is a thing that is wrong to do. Whoever did that recording was in the meeting. I was in the meeting myself and there was no time in which the Minister made that statement that said his principal did not care for Nigerians. That is a very, very incorrect statement.
“A reporter asked a question about how President Muhammadu Buhari reacts to negative interviews and the write-ups that the media do about him. And the Minister made it clear that the President did not care about negative comments because they were distractions. That he didn’t even bother to read those comments because they were distracting him from his work. That was actually what he said. He did not in any way say the President did not care about Nigerians. I mean it is practically impossible for you to say such a thing about your principal. No right thinking man would say such thing about his principal.
“So the whole thing was very, very doctored from 40 seconds that was released, a lot of very important part that would have explained the whole context of the interview was taken out by whoever released those audios. And I mean it is just a form of cheap blackmails. And I am not saying this because I was there, I am saying this because it’s the truth. I’m a journalist and the ethics of my job makes it compulsory for me to give out truthful information at all times. So that audio is very, very doctored and it is a wrong thing to do,” he told VoiceTV Nigeria on aired via the Youtude.
