Presidency speaks on tapped phone calls, says ‘Online media are violating people’s privacy’

Mallam Garba Shehu is the Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity. In this interview by Saturday Tribune’s LEON USIGBE, he speaks on the concerns of government with fake news, online media, IPOB, and on other issues while also saying that President Buhari is laying an enduring foundation for the development of the country.

 

The President’s speech at the UNGA has been criticized for not focusing enough on Nigerian issues, how would you react to that?

The President’s speech has been acclaimed from several quarters as one that was all-encompassing.  It touched on all the issues for discussion at such fora — issues of human rights, international peace and security, terrorism and those affecting our sub-region. He also spoke of the role we are playing to cause order and settlement in the subregion as we did in The Gambia, Ivory Coast and Mali.

President Muhammadu Buhari has never shied away from reaching out to the international community for help when Nigeria needed it. It was at last year’s UNGA that he openly sought international assistance in negotiating the release of the Chibok girls. Look at what followed afterwards, with the successful negotiation of the release of batches of 21 and 82 girls, in a deal brokered with the assistance of the Swiss government. However, we must not forget that Nigeria is a sovereign nation. Not every domestic issue must be tabled before the international community for our people to know that the government considers it serious. We are an independent country and people, with our own government machinery. God has blessed us with the wisdom and ability to handle the majority of our problems by ourselves.

It may, however, be disappointing to some that we did not use this forum to talk about our exiting recession, the power plant we are building at Mambila and the Second Niger Bridge in the East.

 

An online medium has published transcripts of what it claimed were telephone conversations between persons close to the President. As a government, are you not worried that people’s privacy is being wantonly violated through illegal wiretap? Is the government doing something about it?

I think we should be more worried about online media that violate people’s privacy by publishing tapped private conversations. The government of President Buhari believes in press freedom, but some agents of the press unfortunately make unethical decisions that can only do long term damage to our human rights in this country. Fake news is also a big problem. I can’t count the number of times I’ve read items in the news, sometimes with quotes credited to me, that just weren’t true. These online media should be a source of grave concern to all of us, and the citizens of our country should begin calling them out rather than revelling in their sensational but unethical so-called news.

 

The IPOB issue is a major distraction for the country and the government. Beyond the proscription, are there soft measures to address the issues that gave rise to the agitations? 

First of all, it is important to note that since the announcement of those measures by the governors of the region and the Federal Government as well as the proactive peace advocacy by governors in the northern states, there has been a general calming of the tension that pervaded the country.  IPOB set out to cause civil unrest in the country and it is important that they have failed in this despicable mission.

I can assure you that the government of President Buhari is keen on a peaceful resolution to the IPOB crisis and to all other agitations in various parts of the country, where our people are crying out from the neglect of decades of bad governance and mismanagement of our country’s resources.

Soon from now, government at the highest level will resume consultations with the responsible elite in that region and is determined to pay even more attention to the decay in the infrastructure bedeviling this and all parts of the country.

 

Critics of the Buhari government have said it is strange that it was quick to label as terrorist and proscribe IPOB but looks the other way on the atrocities of Fulani herdsmen. What can you say on that?

You seem to be comparing apples with pawpaws. The herdsmen, no matter how criminal their actions, have never declared a sovereign state within Nigeria. They don’t have territorial ambitions.  IPOB on the other has put us on notice that they want to take Kogi, Benue, Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta! The Fulani don’t have flags or national passports. They don’t boast of a secret service or of building their own army. That sounds more like Boko Haram to me than the herdsmen.

 

Would you agree that given the manner security appointments were made, with all key military and security appointments going to the north, your government has been the most insensitive in the history of this country?

Appointments made in the security sector under this administration have been as fair as any can possibly be. This country has more than 250 ethnic groups and it cannot happen that there is a Service Chief from each of them.  Besides, it is a revolving door up there, determined of course by merit.  The leadership keeps changing every now and then.

 

What is the state of relationship between the President and former Lagos state governor, Bola Tinubu?

I believe that the President has done very well in forging a successful relationship between him and other party leaders, and these, of course, include the leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

I give credit to the President for the way he is able to maintain the spirit of fellowship and mutual respect with all of them, at a time when political bad blood appears to be flowing freely in other parties.

But I don’t think this is difficult to understand, given that this is a President who wants to get things done, especially in the setting up of infrastructure, securing the country, fighting corruption and restoring the country and has an idea of what to do. To that extent, the President does not have any problems with Senator Tinubu.

 

When is the next Presidential Media Chat holding? President Buhari has done it only once since May 2015. 

That information will be communicated to the media as soon as a date is fixed.

 

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