The State House correspondent of The Punch, Olalekan Adetayo, was on Monday expelled from the beat over a story on President Muhammadu Buhari’s health.
Read his narration on the issue below:
Abuja, on Monday morning, I received a
message that the Chief Security Officer to the President, Bashir
Abubakar, would like to see me in his office. What came to my mind
immediately was that it was the Presidency’s Media Office that
interfaces with journalists and not the CSO. I felt I should inform the
presidential spokesmen before honouring the strange invitation.I
proceeded to the office of the Special Adviser to the President on
Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, and informed him of the
invitation. Adesina advised that I honoured it and updated him of
developments. The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and
Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, was not in the office at the time but I
contacted him on the telephone.On getting to the CSO’s office,
he was initially polite. He offered me a seat and asked how I was doing
and I replied I was fine. He then first confronted me with my column,
Aso Rock Lens, published on Saturday, April 22, 2017. He was angry with
one of the items in the column titled ‘Seat of power’s event centres
going into extinction’. In that piece, I highlighted some places in the
Presidential Villa that hitherto had hosted high-profile events. I wrote
that lately, events had not been held inside the halls. He said I was
insinuating that government had collapsed in Nigeria.The CSO
then brought out a copy of April 23, 2017 edition of SUNDAY PUNCH. He
was visibly angry about the lead story titled ‘Fresh anxiety in Aso Rock
over Buhari’s poor health’. That story was about how the President had
not been seen in public in the last two weeks except when he made brief
appearances at the mosque inside the Presidential Villa for Juma’at
services last Friday and penultimate Friday. That story included the
reaction of Adesina, who said the President was recuperating and that
the prayer of all was that he recovered fully soon.The CSO queried the motive behind the two stories.
He
told me that the President was free to rule the country from wherever
he liked. He said the stories were meant to portray the President as
incapacitated and that it had to do with the politics of 2019.He
told me he would take me to the President’s official residence to see
him and then tell him (the CSO) if Buhari was incapacitated. He never
did that.Abubakar added that if God had sanctioned it that
Buhari would rule the country for eight years, no man could stop him. He
made reference to the fact that people who were not even sick died
daily.The CSO thereafter directed one of his men to take my
statement and revert to him. The man took me to his office. I wrote in
the statement that I had no ulterior motive in writing the stories in
question. I was updating presidential spokesmen of developments as
earlier agreed. The gentleman took my statement and I returned to the
CSO’s office.On getting there, Abubakar asked the
Officer-in-Charge of the Department of State Services, Victor Nwafor, to
seize my accreditation tag. He said he should escort me to retrieve my
personal belongings from the Press Gallery and then leave instructions
with security operatives that I should not be allowed access into the
Presidential Villa again.Nwafor carried out the assignment
dutifully. He passed the message to the security officials at the Admin
Reception and then handed me over to another security operative who he
instructed to do the same thing at the Pilot Gate before escorting me to
where I parked my car to ensure that I left the premises immediately.I
was driven from there in a security vehicle. At the Pilot Gate, the
gentleman assembled all security operatives there and delivered the
message to them. I caught one of them, a policeman, snapping my
photograph with his telephone handset and I protested. I told him I am
not a criminal and he has no right to snap me. He was apologetic and
attempted to show me the handset to prove that he had deleted the
picture but I told him I was not interested in his claim.I was driven in the same security van to where I parked my car and I drove out of the Presidential Villa from there.
The
CSO had penultimate Thursday had an interactive session with members of
the State House Press Corps, during which he handed them guidelines on
how to report the Villa.He had also in January complained about a
story on an accidental discharge that injured a female worker at the
State House. Although all national newspapers reported the incident, he
singled out The PUNCH and Daily Trust.His argument was that the story was not informative, educative or entertaining.