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Responding to the BBC’s Global Disinformation Team, that there was no evidence that the certificate Tinubu submitted to the INEC was forged.
Atiku Abubakar’s Special
Assistant on Public Communications, Phrank Shaibu, yesterday, lampooned the
British Broadcasting Corportation, BBC, over its fact-check report.
Shaibu, in a statement,
described the report as a hatchet job, adding that the outrage it had elicited
from the generality of Nigerians was enough evidence to show that the BBC
goofed.
He said the BBC’s move was not
surprising as it was in line with a previous statement he had issued wherein he
had revealed that the Tinubu administration was set to unleash its full
propaganda programme.
He said: “Sometime last week,
when the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, issued a final warning to Arise
News TV, we pointed out that the Tinubu administration was on the verge of
launching a full blown propaganda and also intimidating ‘uncooperative’ media
houses into discrediting and downplaying the CSU scandal. Sadly, we never
imagined that it would be the BBC that would become the willing tool.
“It is unconscionable,
appalling and preposterous that in this current information age, a foreign
medium of repute could try to bamboozle Nigerians with a jaundiced report when
the details are clear for everyone to see. Thank God young Nigerians have begun
filing complaints against the hack writers who decided to soil their names for
a bowl of porridge.
“We are not ignorant of the
machinations of the BBC and its bias towards the current government. It is
unfortunate that the BBC is not upholding the same standards as they would
uphold in the UK where a Prime Minister was forced out of office for hosting a
party during COVID-19. In 2009, columnist Mehdi Hasan wrote in the New
Statesman that the BBC was biased ‘towards power and privilege, tradition and
orthodoxy.’
“It is no wonder that in the
last one year, the only news medium that was given exclusive access to
interview Tinubu was the BBC. It is sickening that the BBC has decided to
surrender its platform to a man who was accused of illegal drug trafficking in
the United States of America.
“In the so-called fact-check
report, the BBC decided to bury in the last paragraphs the fact that Tinubu
claimed to have attended Government College, Lagos in 1970 when the school was
established in 1974. Why didn’t these so-called fact-checkers reflect it on their
headline?
“What is the essence of the
report when it failed to uncover the most critical questions? If this report
was aimed at fact-checking, it should have mentioned the year the certificate
was obtained by Tinubu from the CSU and if the one he submitted to INEC is the
same one he received from CSU.
“Tinubu said at Chatham House
that he had received a replacement from CSU when the school said in unambiguous
terms that he had not done so. What was the date he applied for his INEC
replacement certificate from CSU, and when was it issued to him?
“The investigation was clearly
carried out with a predetermined goal, which was to clear Tinubu. But let us
ask the BBC if they would employ anyone with such controversial background.”
Shaibu called on the BBC and
other fact-checkers to be more circumspect, adding that their job was too
sensitive to entertain errors.
“On November 28, 2022, Africa
Check, one of the highly funded fact check organisations, claimed that the
report by the opposition that Tinubu had lied that he attended Government
College, Lagos, was false.
He said: “After Atiku Abubakar,
through his daring court case, decided to blow open the lid, it turned out that
the opposition was right all along. Till date, Africa Check has also not
apologised for misleading the public.
‘’This is the new reality that
we face. Who will fact-check the fact-checkers?”
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