My Take On The Presidential Media Chat

By Joe Abah, OON

President Tinubu’s interviewers were star-struck and missed opportunities to interrogate  him

I’ve just watched President Tinubu’s media chat and here are my thoughts. Please read to the end:

1. When a President invites you into their home for a media chat, a certain level of decorum would be expected of the interviewers. You can challenge but with decorum and facts.

2. However, when HE throws a challenge, good interviewers should accept that challenge with relish. They should do so in order to get an insight into his mindset for the benefit of the public.

3. So, on cost of governance, when he said he needs all his Ministers, they should have asked him why he feels he needs a Ministry of Livestock Development when he already has a Ministry of Agriculture. Why couldn’t the Ministry of Agriculture do whatever it was he wanted the Livestock MInistry to do?

Why does he need a Ministry of Police Affairs when the IGP, by law, reports directly to him and the Nigeria Police Council is empowered to make policy for the Police Force? Why does the Police Affairs Ministry have a budget of over N1 Trillion!

What has happened to the Oronsaye Report implementation that he set up a committee and gave them 12 weeks in March to report?

4. When he said his Ministers are all delivering and challenged them to name any that weren’t, it was a golden opportunity to put to him what the public think and to hear his views. It would also have exposed where the Ministers might be working but were failing to communicate. For instance, he said Prof Pate of the Ministry of Health is doing excellently well. They should have asked him what it was he was doing exactly?

They should have asked what the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy has achieved in 18 months? They should have relayed the surprise of many that the Minister of Power survived the recent reshuffle.

When he said that our internet provision is not where it should be, they should have asked him what the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy is doing about it.

5. When he said he had ensured the financial autonomy of Local Governments, they should have asked him why the FGN itself was not complying with the Supreme Court ruling and sending monies direct to LGAs?

6. Overall, I think that the interviewers were somewhat star struck, perhaps because it was the first one. I also think that there were too many interviewers, with everyone having to be allowed to ask a question to represent their media house. That meant that there was little interactiveness, even when the President offered opportunities for robust exchange.

I hope that future media chats would be more robust.