Nigeria’s Think Tank, Independent Media and Policy Initiative (IMPI), has described a recent publication by the Guardian as an unprofessional job that is not grounded in fact.
The policy think tank said in a statement signed by its Chairman, Dr Niyi Akinsiju, that the write up titled ‘Calls for military intervention: misery, harsh policies driving Nigerians to desperate choices’ could best be described as coup-baiting.
“We have dissected the Guardian’s ‘big story’ of Friday, October 25 titled “Calls for military intervention: Misery, harsh policies driving Nigerians to desperate choices” written by Eno-Abasi Sunday from an analyst perspective and come to the conclusion that it was a reflection of the personal, biased opinion of the writer presented as a national consensus.
“It simply sums up the political outlook which the writer, who incidentally is a Deputy editor at Guardian, has been projecting in the social media since 2022 especially through his Facebook page.
“We invite any unbiased analyst to look through Eno Abasi Sunday’s digital footprints and see if there is a difference between his position on the President Bola Tinubu administration in the two-page write up and his serial pro- Peter Obi, anti-All Progressives Congress vituperations.
“It would have been better if the article had been published as an opinion piece, which it indeed was, rather than under the guise of Guardian’s big story which connotes something more in-depth and well researched.
“Looking through the article, it looked from the outset like a pro-military intervention piece especially as the writer began by suggesting that ‘Nigerians’ lives have taken a turn for the worse in the last two decades or thereabouts’ according to the ‘plunging misery index’ which he failed to cite to justify his claim. This presupposes that the people were better off in the military era inspite of all the ills associated with military rule.
“Eno Abasi Sunday was also quick to make reference to what he described as ‘unmet expectations’ and ‘failed promises’ which in his words ‘put military return on some citizen’s wishlist’
“But IMPI is of the view that in the glory days of the Guardian with Stanley Macebuh at the helm of the newspaper, the writer would have at least be duty bound to show those ‘failed promises’ especially as the Tinubu administration is barely 18 months in office.
“Even as the writer is known to have in his previous social media posts jumped on the opposition bandwagon of deliberately misrepresenting President Tinubu, we would have expected him, as a professional, to drop his bias and do a proper ‘big story’ that may have ended up questioning the rationale for the misplaced call for military intervention.
“From an analyst perspective, there is no way a reversal of the twin policies of fuel subsidy and multiple foreign exchange rates of the previous administration would not have created some shock in the system.
“We made this point in our most recent policy statement in which we posited that the nation was going through a ‘major disruptive experience as a result of the federal government’s efforts to reform and rehabilitate the economy.
“It is also a fact that the policies have continually ensured that more money is available for increased allocation to all tiers of government. This is obvious from the N9.1trillion revenue the country generated in the first six months of 2024, compared to N5.2trilllion it earned in the same period last year.
“Should the writer of a big story on misery and harsh policies not be clear minded enough to ask what the subnationals are up to now that they have since June 2023 been getting more than double their previous allocations from the federation account?,” IMPI added.
The policy think tank also wondered what changed between August 2022 when the Guardian published a special feature that favoured the removal of fuel subsidy and now.
It said: We find it interesting that the same Guardian, on August 14 2022, published a news feature titled ‘Reflections on fuel subsidy regime’ in which it painted a stark picture of how public expenditure of N7tn was to be spent on a wasteful subsidy programme in 2023 at a time about 95% of the country’s revenue was going to debt servicing.
“That feature which had inputs from economists and other industry experts also envisaged inflationary trends in the aftermath of fuel subsidy removal but noted that ‘a shift to liberalization will ensure that fuel prices will crawl around a long-term trend rather than by fits and jumps that cause significant price shocks in the economy’.
“For us, the difference between that August 2022 Guardian feature and its so-called big story of October 2024 is that the former was anchored by the newspaper’s energy editor, Kingsley Jeremiah, who is also the current energy correspondent of the year and therefore a subject matter expert.
“So we wonder why it was difficult for a newspaper which prides itself as the flagship to have a balanced big story, this time, rather than one written with an agenda.
“Like many Nigerians, we are aware that the removal of fuel subsidy has led to some hardship in the polity, something even the federal government has acknowledged and tagged as temporary pain.
“We are also aware of initiatives that have either been deployed or being deployed by the federal government but Guardian appeared to be more fixated with a skewed narrative.”
IMPI urged the media to exercise restraint and be more circumspect in putting out narratives that could create problems in the polity.