ABUJA – By Akeem Oyetunji The Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Bayo Onanuga, on Tuesday, trivialized the glaring hardship in Nigeria, accusing the media and bloggers of over sensationalizing it.
Speaking from his ‘comfort zone’ as Chief Executive Officer of a federal government-owned media organization (NAN), he boasted on his Facebook page how his daughter traveling to London, United Kingdom, sent him a text message, saying the airport was filed up, suggesting that many people still travel abroad despite the ‘so called hardship’.
Onanuga, a former Managing Director of an independent and privately-owned TheNews magazine, also appeared to be mocking millions of Nigerians who are suffering and lamenting hardship, saying foods and fruits are not that expensive as being presented by the media and bloggers.
Onanuga concluded by asking if the media and bloggers were really painting a correct image of ‘hardship in Nigeria, challenging them “to objectively conduct a reality check about our reports, whether we are not over sensationalizing so-called hardship that we talked about.”
The Facebook post is reproduced below unedited:
“My daughter was on the Virgin Atlantic Flight that took off from Lagos to London today. I asked her to find out whether the plane was filled up or going to London near empty judging by the noisy campaign from a section of the country about the ‘hardship’ in our country.
“My daughter sent back this one-line text, after boarding: “daddy, the flight was filled up o”.
This makes me to wonder whether all the seeming orchestrated campaign in the media was not mere propaganda to make the Buhari regime look really bad.
“I was in Bauchi and Jos at the weekend, I also found that food was cheap everywhere. In our hotel, we paid about N700 for a plate of semovita, or eba with a choice of cat fish or chicken.
“On the roadside, I found to my surprise that with just N1000, I bought over 50 oranges, two giant water melon and 10 pieces of sweet potato.
“I had experienced a similar thing in the market at Abuja, where I found that with N1, 400, I could make a big vegetable soup, with tomato, pepper and roasted Titus fish.
“Are the media and bloggers really painting a correct image of our country? It’s time for the media to objectively conduct a reality check about our reports, whether we are not over sensationalising so-called hardship that we talked about.”
