Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has said that he has not been able to spot any insults which news reports say that Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, directed at President Muhammadu Buhari in the leaked audio.
Prof Soyinka said this in Abuja on Wednesday at a symposium on fake news organised by BBC News.
The playwright, who was a panellist at the event tagged, ‘Nigeria 2019: Countering Fake News’, urged the traditional media not to act like the electronic media by spreading unfounded allegations.
“Just two or three days ago, I read an item where a minister was supposed to have insulted the President and it was carried in some media and I checked the statement and of course there was a video and so on and I looked through it, I read the text again and again and I said I have to relearn the English language because I didn’t see where the insults were.
“So sometimes, print media feels compelled to compete with the electronic media and this is a great mistake because there is a reputation, there is an expectation and you should not be embarrassed to show yourself superior to a medium which is accessible to the lowest, the very dregs of society,” Soyinka said.
According to audio released by Phrank Shaibu, an aide of Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr Amaechi made the alleged controversial statements in a conversation with some journalists.
In the clip, Amaechi, who is the Director-General of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, purportedly said Mr Buhari neither reads nor listens to anyone.
Members of Buhari’s media team as well as close associates of Amaechi have confirmed the authenticity of the clip but said it was edited out of context.
