More Media Aides for a Failing Economy?

More Media Aides for a Failing Economy? 

Clement Oloyede

With the announcement of Tolu Ogunlesi as the Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Digital/New Media bringing the number of media-related aides of Mr. President to a total of five (5) not even including the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Muhammad and without an economic team on ground nor any laid out plan for the turnaround of the nation's plummeting economy, Nigerians sure have a lot to worry about.

Is this a government of propaganda or a government of change?

Why so many media aides for a government that promised to cut down on the cost of governance?

Why do we have a Personal Assistant (Bashir Ahmad) and then a Special Assistant (Tolu Ogunlesi) for new media, while we also have a PA on Broadcast media (Shaban Ibrahim Sharada) when we already have Mr. Femi Adesina (Special Adviser, Media & Publicity) and Mr. Garba Shehu (Senior Special Assistant, Media and Publicity) doing the same jobs and Alhaji Lai Muhammad (Minister of Information) is even out shining them all with more and more messages via the media?

I'm not an economist but I believe a government that really wants to deliver must set the ground running with a formidable economic team and/or an economic blueprint and not more and more media aides that will continue to tell us everything will soon be alright and that the problem we are facing now is as a result of past administration's maladministration (the truth of which we know, but I thought we voted for Mr. Buhari so that he will deliver 'change'?)

Well, the people that help us to expose the "cluelessness" of the past administration via the social media and pages on our national dailies have suddenly lost their voices as they are awaiting their own appointments as media aides to Mr. President or perhaps media aides to the media aides of Mr. President (we all know PAs also need their own PAs, especially in Nigeria).

There is now an unwritten law criminalising the act of constructively criticising the office of Mr. President. Those that speak up are labelled Wailing Wailers, Enemy of Progress, Enemy of Change, PDPigs, and so on.

I believe we can all help Mr. President to succeed in delivering on his election promises by first admitting and accepting that he is human and as such he is fallible. Constructive criticism can only help to strengthen our democracy and deliver to us the dividends thereof.

Let us help Mr. President to help salvage our country.

‪#‎AnOpinion‬