The Presidency has accused supporters of Peter Obi, known as Obidients, of peddling false narratives against the government on social media.
Naija News reports that Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Media and Policy Communication, Daniel Bwala, decried that Obidients’ emotion-laden, false narratives were affecting the legacy media operations.
Bwala, who stated this in an interview with News Central on Wednesday, said he was not bound to remain in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) because he worked with Atiku Abubakar.
He said his decision to leave the PDP for the APC was not wrong, stating that he left the party only for seven months.
“What I’m trying to say with respect to this issue is that a political party is not a cult you understand. Even in cult, people leave cult; religion, people change religion; marriage, people change marriage. There’s no aspect of human life in which somebody stays there forever. And there will always be a reason why you take a decision, some of the reasons might not be ideology-based, some of them will be ideology-based.
“Now I have been a member of APC, I have been a founding member of APC. For eight, ten years, we supported until that election period and seven months was the only period I was that way from APC.
“Then by the time the President beckoned on me to come, with all pleasure. When I committed to supporting him and in all of my communing, not a single day have you heard me open my mouth to speak against the person of Atiku Abubakar. You see, we have to be matured,” he said.
President Tinubu’s Aide called on the legacy media to reduce influence of Obidients in their reports. He said narratives by Obidients on social media affecting journalism in mainstream media was not helpful and should be avoided.
Bwala added that it would always be easier to criticize that propagate the positive policies of the government.
“All these things you see Obidient people narrate, controlling narratives in the social media and trying to muzzle mainstream media into social media journalism, that is not fact-checked, that is not proven, that is emotion-based, it is not helpful.
“And some of these people who feed off of the rave and ratings they get from social media in the mainstream, in the legacy media, are the ones creating problems for the people in the legacy media.
“It is easier to fight and insult than to make. For example, if you want to criticize this government you don’t need to do research and you’ll just keep throwing, you will find a lot of people that will agree with you, because of people’s experiences and grievances; but it takes a lot to talk about positives, because then you have to substantiate it,” he added.
