Cabal not peculiar to Buhari govt – Garba Shehu

…Says social media bill will not undermine mass media

Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, has described as misconception the notion that the Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) is being propelled by certain individuals referred to as ‘cabal’.

However, the presidential aide said the Buhari government, like every other administration before it and in other countries of the world has a ‘kitchen cabinet’ that thinks for the government and shapes public opinion.

Shehu, who made this disclosure at the weekend during an interaction with APC Press Corps in Abuja, said President Buhari should not be castigated for holding certain persons in trust in the running of government.

Explaining what he understand as cabal, Shehi said: ” I just googled Thesaurus and among many other definitions, what they are saying is that cabal means “conspire, intrigues, mystique, occult, secret”.

“There is no government in this country that we have had that some people were not accused of being a cabal in that government and it is because every administration, every president must have a secretariat.

“Every president must have people who advise him. It is not a sin, it is not an offence to have people that you take into confidence. Elsewhere, they call it ‘Kitchen Cabinet’, but in our own country we are being derogatory and we term them the cabal so that it will tarnish their own good standing.

“A lot of them are successful people who are making extreme sacrifices to even be coming to serve government. Some of them have no need around government but because this is a country of people, some of them are much in a hurry.

“In fact, for some of our elite, Buhari is a bad man because you cannot go to him and say give me oil well and he will sign paper and give you. So, we understand the game that is playing out and there is always a price, in any case, to pay for that kind of exposure.

“Even the president himself, the kind of things that are being said of him, if he did not offer himself to serve, some of those things, people would not even have the chance to say them against him. So, we will live with it, we will accept it because it goes with the territory”.

The Senior Special Assistant also defended the proposed social media bill and concluded that the mass media in Nigeria has fared well under the APC administration while debunking as untrue the notion that the Buhari government want to muzzle the press.

According to him, the social media bill as being proposed by the current administration is not political because the government has no reason to undermine or weaken the mass media.

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He said in a country where the mass media is being suppressed, where there is no freedom of expression and information, the media space tends to decline, it becomes smaller and media houses close down.

Rather, he said under the Buhari government, the media space has experienced expansion.

“The last time we did, we licenced about 300 radio stations and as I’m speaking to you now this administration is processing almost 500 requests for radio stations.

“Media cannot be expanded, if it is being oppressed. A lot of our colleagues I have seen them, any editor who loses job today or senior journalist, you will see him set up a digital newspaper and they are doing well. Many of them are prospering which tells you that the media is not in any way constrained in carry out its constitutional duties”.

Justifying the need to regulate the social media in the country, he said it has become a problem for many families because rights of women and children are being abused.

He added that there is a need to protect vulnerable members of the society, and the need to protect minority whether tribal or religion in the country.

Shehu charged media practitioners to stand to be counted in the regulation of social media.

“So, it makes sense that you as media stakeholders come around the Minister of Information and Culture and formulate the kind of regulation you want so that it is not that there is top bottom approach, so that government will not be accused of imposing a regulatory mechanism on the media.

“The minister is saying come, sit down with me and let us talk about it. And I was told that the day he called on NUJ, they walked out of him. If that the report is true, I think it is very unfortunate.

I think we need to come around him and offer media driven solution so that at the end of it, this country will have a vibrant and effective social media communication system.

“I think I will be like to appeal that please give serious consideration to some of these elements and see how the media in the country can work together with government to find communication solution to purely communication problem”.