The Presidency has expressed worry over the fictitious report that was featured prominently in the media about what it said, was whispers between the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari and Head of Service, Winifred Oyo-Ita shortly before the Wednesday’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting began.
In a statement, the senior special assistant to the President on media and publicity, Malam Garba Shehu today, Friday, wondered how possible it was for a conversation between the President’s Chief of Staff and the Head of Service of the Federation to be heard by any journalist, “as the distance between the State House correspondents and the two government officials was far. The two addressed the Vice President at Wednesday’s FEC meeting.”
He explained that the conversation between the top government officials at the FEC Chamber was “completely inaudible to the journalists.”
Garba Shehu said that it was not abnormal for people to debate and argue over issues, but that to suggest that there was a feud, a fight or a clash was to take matters beyond what they were.
The Presidential spokesman described media reports of a fight between the top government officials as fabrications that could only have been conjured by correspondents “who would probably make better fiction writers than journalists.
“By tradition, the media organizations send their best reporters to the State House. This should reflect, at all times on the quality of reporting.
“I am a journalist myself, and in journalism, you are not supposed to report anything other than the facts of what you heard or observed directly, or what you were told by a firsthand or authoritative eyewitness. You cannot add two and two to make twenty-two and present it to the public as news.”
Garba Shehu made it clear that the two government officials were never summoned by the President over the alleged skirmish, saying that such conclusion was yet another example of conjecture.
“Top government officials of that calibre see the President on a regular basis. To suggest that they were summoned to see him as a result of a so-called feud is just a fabrication, a conclusion that is below the level of responsible journalism that we expect from our State House correspondents.”[myad]
