Lere Olayinka, senior special assistant on public communications to Nyesom Wike, minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), says his principal’s comment about Seun Okinbaloye, a journalist with Channels Television, was in a “hyperbolic context”.
In a statement on Saturday, Olayinka said Wike and
Okinbaloye spoke on telephone over the comment on Saturday.
During a media chat on Friday, the FCT minister said he felt
like shooting Okinbaloye over the journalist’s comment about Nigeria’s
potential drift towards a one-party state during Thursday’s edition of Channels
Television’s Politics Today.
“I was surprised yesterday, thoroughly surprised. When I was
watching Politics Today, Seun. If there was any way to break the screen, I
would have shot him,” the FCT minister had said.
Okinbaloye had said on Politics Today that it was
disappointing the 2027 elections were shaping up as a contest of one political
party, owing to the crisis in the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
‘WIKE’S COMMENT WAS TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT’
Clarifying Wike’s comment, Olayinka said the minister did
not have the intention to shoot Okinbaloye, noting that he was only angry that
the journalist acted like an “interested party” in the ADC leadership crisis.
He lamented that the minister’s comment is now being used as
an “instrument of blackmail and propaganda by those whose intent is to
misrepresent facts for their political gains”.
“The minister never meant that he will shoot Seun
Okinbaloye. They even spoke on the phone today, and he (Okinbaloye) understood
what the minister meant,” the statement reads.
“What the minister meant, which he made clear during the
media chat, was that he was angry seeing Okinbaloye, whom he holds in high
esteem as a journalist, descending into the political arena by speaking as an
interested party, instead of an interviewer.
“The statement made by the minister was in hyperbolic
context, which was clearly without intent. It was primarily using exaggeration
to make a point.
“Even after the Minister made the clarifications on the live
television program, which had Chamberlain Uzor, Head of Channels Television’s
Abuja Office as part of the interviewers, all the journalists who were
interviewing him just laughed.
“Therefore, after the minister detailed explanations of what
he meant, including saying on the live television program that he didn’t mean
that he will carry gun and shoot the television anchor, it will become a clear
hatchet job for any individual or group to pick the statement out of context
and make any issue out of it.”
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com