The former Aviation minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, Thursday, alleged that the minister of information, Lai Muhammed and the senior special adviser to president Buhari on media and publicity, Femi Adesina, threatened to shut down the television station that granted him interview about Buhari’s health status, government and two years in office, if they dare air it for Nigerians to view.
Fani-Kayode made this known in his write up tagged, “A COLONY OF MONKEYS AND A CONGRESS OF BABOONS” on his tweeter handle. The former minister faulted Buhari’s administration and modus operandi on freedom of speech and government criticisms, saying that his government is “where any form of resistance or opposition is regarded as subversion and is met with brutality and lethal force and where any telling criticism of the ruling APC party, government officials or the President is regarded as “hate speech” that must be suppressed”.
According to him, “A few days ago I had a revealing, probing and in-depth interview with a leading television station about President Muhammadu Buhari, his record in office over the last two years, his health and his government.
“Lai Mohammed, our notoriously excitable and mendacious Minister of Information, was so upset and disturbed by the contents of that discussion that he personally called the television station that recorded it and told them that the government would close them down if they dared to air it.
“His call was followed by an equally threatening one from the chief executive of the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation who issued the same threat.
“Yet it did not stop there. Femi Adesina, the President’s spokesman, almost defecated in his pants when he got a whisper of some of the things that I had revealed and he wondered out loud how I managed to get all the facts and information that I shared during the interview.
He begged the station not to air it as well and also threatened them with dire consequences if they did so. Sadly the station in question got cold feet, succumbed to the threats and fell for the blackmail.
“I am not surprised by this and neither do I blame them for doing so. I say this because they, more than any other, have been subjected to all manner of harassment over the years yet despite that they remain one of the most balanced, professional, forthright and courageous media outfits in the country till today.
“They are indeed the first amongst equals but they also know the monsters that they are dealing with when it comes to the Buhari administration and they appreciate the fact that they have to be extremely careful even when it comes to reporting what are essentially notorious facts.
“They have to be even more careful when it comes to allowing strong opposition figures like yours truly and other non-conformists and perceived enemies of the government to use their powerful platform to air their personal opinions and strong dissenting views.
The truth is that this government is vicious and dangerous and, in my view, they are only one step away from “disappearing” (Argentinian style) media practitioners, publishers, essayists, columnists and writers that are not prepared to bow down to their unholy will and lick their filthy, unclean and unwashed posterior.
“Simply put they are chicken-hearted governments that are terrified of their own shadow.
“They are a government of uncircumcised Philistines who were put in power by heathens and unbelievers and who attract and enjoy the support of every low-life and apostate from the south side of hell. Nothing terrifies them more than public scrutiny and the glorious light of accountability and truth.
“From the top to the bottom they are all the same: gangsterish and paranoid charlatans who flourish in darkness and who thrive in division, conflict, lies, deceit, suppression, threats, murder, violence and intimidation.
“Femi Adesina’s cowardice and perfidy particularly is nothing new. This is the same man that threatened the publisher of two leading national newspapers to close my weekly column and that has been begging and offering inducements to virtually every online magazine that I write for to stop publishing my essays.
“That is how fearful, feeble, powerless, shameless, cowardly and paranoid the Buhari government has become. That is the level of their depravity and that is the level that they have degenerated to.
“They cannot take criticism and they cannot bear any form of factual and in-depth analysis of their abysmal and woeful performance.
“They do not have the stomach or intellectual stamina for a strong and lively challenge, for what I would describe as “hard talk” or indeed for any form of virile debate and contentious public discourse.
“Simply put they behave like a congress of baboons and a colony of monkeys. They always run away from a real fight and a real debate and they are terrified of those that are ready to take them on.
“Instead of attempting to defend themselves in the court of public opinion they seek to silence the opposition by the power of their might and they seek to suppress dissent, muscle the media and bury the truth.”
