“On Tuesday, August 21, 2018, Akin Oshuntokun, a chieftain of the stillborn Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM), appeared on Politics Today programme of Channels Television, and made the false claim that a bomb blast had gone off earlier in the day, killing about 88 people in Maiduguri, Borno State…Sallah Day had passed quietly and peacefully, without even a firecracker going off, let alone bomb blast. That was contrary to what used to happen before the advent of the Buhari administration, when such festivals were turned to orgy of killings in many parts of the country by insurgents. Apparently, enemies of peace and progress had expected a return to the infamous past, thus Oshuntokun appeared on television with his bag of lies.”
What appears to be first major exposition of creators of fake news in the country may have been made as the President says on Thursday that a newspaper columnist, Mr. Akin Oshuntokun, gave a spurious information about an unfounded bomb blast at the Sallah celebration on Tuesday.
Oshuntokun, who is a chieftain of the Olusegun Obasanjo-led anti-Muhammadu Buhari’s 2019 re-election Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM), was said by the nation’s highest corridor of powers to have made a false claim on a television programme that a bomb blast had gone off earlier in on the Sallah day of Tuesday killing about 88 people in Maiduguri, Borno State capital.
It said the information by such a Nigerian citizen was nothing near the truth as there was no such incident of bomb blast on Sallah day, even the Presidency lamented that Oshuntokun, who it said never hid his antipathy towards President Muhammadu Buhari administration, could be so engrossed in wishing his own country bad.
This year’s Sallah celebration was peaceful all over the country even as news existed about the progress and successes the military operations against bandits killing innocent Nigerians in Zamfara and other part of the North East.
There was no single news of any incident of bomb attack during Tuesday Sallah celebrations until Oshuntokun said so. It was just like there was news of any incident of violence during the July 14 Ekiti State governorship elections until wife of another member of the Coalition for Nigerian Movement (CNM), Joe Yinka Odumakin said so without providing tenable evidence other than what she claimed was sent to her phone.
News media started broadcasting and publishing election violence in Ekiti only few days after the winner, All Progressives Congress (APC) Kayode Fayemi had been declared thereby posing serious questions to the integrity of the Nigerian Media as they stand today.
Making its distaste over the fake Sallah bomb blast news by the coalition chieftain known on Thursday, the Presidency in a statement in a statement by Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Chief Femi Adesina, noted it was not new thing that Oshuntokun had antagonism towards Buhari’s administration, but that to go on national television and “tell lies of the most heinous kind betrays a mind taken completely over by ill wishes against his own country”.
The statement read in details:
“On Tuesday, August 21, 2018, Akin Oshuntokun, a chieftain of the stillborn Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM), appeared on Politics Today programme of Channels Television, and made the false claim that a bomb blast had gone off earlier in the day, killing about 88 people in Maiduguri, Borno State.
“Oshuntokun, a newspaper columnist and public affairs commentator, has never hidden his antipathy towards the Muhammadu Buhari administration, but to go on national television and tell lies of the most heinous kind betrays a mind taken completely over by ill wishes against his own country.
“Sallah Day had passed quietly and peacefully, without even a firecracker going off, let alone bomb blast. That was contrary to what used to happen before the advent of the Buhari administration, when such festivals were turned to orgy of killings in many parts of the country by insurgents. Apparently, enemies of peace and progress had expected a return to the infamous past, thus Oshuntokun appeared on television with his bag of lies.
“When those on the programme remonstrated with him that they were not aware of any bomb blast on that day, he stood his ground, all in a futile bid to puncture the successes recorded by government in the area of security.
“Till the Sallah holidays ended, no bomb blast was recorded in any part of the country, to the shame and discomfiture of the naysayers.
“One wonders: if there were bomb blasts, and more than 80 people truly died, what would be the gain of anybody, except those who have become blinded by malediction and morbid wishes? Is carnage something now to glory about? Is the struggle for power now so ghoulish that some people have lost their humanity over it?
“Oshuntokun and his ilk should realize that this is the only country we have, and we can’t swallow poison and expect it to kill the next person. What we sow is what we reap.
“Happily, however, those for a peaceful, united and cohesive Nigeria are more than those against it. That is why those with baleful, hateful thoughts would never win.
“The tripod goals of securing the country, fighting corruption, and reviving the economy are central to the Buhari administration. Government is making strides in the three areas, and the conquests continue.”
Some Nigerians who also reacted to the Oshuntokun’s false information are asking who gave him the information of unfounded Sallah day bomb blast that he peddled around and on the television on that peaceful day of Sallah.
It will be recalled that for decades, Nigerian problems have been described as complex because of situation like this where respected people cooked unverifiable information and used the powers of the media to spread same abroad.
Our investigation revealed therefore that one significant development that has come with the Buhari’s administration to Nigeria and its citizens is that “causes of Nigerian problems are now being revealed as Buhari himself give not damn”.
