Much Ado About A Barring.......

There's been a whole lot of buzz from Nigerians as a result of the recent barring of staff of the Africa Independent Television (AIT) from covering all activities of the President-elect, Gen Buhari until certain pending issues, which include claims of breach of ethics and standards against the tv station, have been cleared up. These issues mostly arose during the campaign where it was pretty obvious to everyone that the tv station were being paid to broadcast filthy smear campaigns against the APC party, The Jagaban and The General/his family. While I do not condone what the AIT did, I believe the move by President-elect is a very wrong one so early on. He did not have to stoop to conquer, especially seeing as it was clear to most people which side of the fence the AIT were sitting on. 

I think he should have held the Nigerian Broadcasting Commission responsible for allowing those documentaries to air, knowing how incitive and mostly untrue the contents were. He should also have waited until the courts ruled appropriately since the case against AIT is already in court. This singular act does not portray him in a good light knowing that people still have their fears about his past as a military dictator. 

This is a democracy and we are all entitled to freedom of speech, and as such the President-elect needs to realize this before paranoia about a clamp down on expressing our thoughts and views are spread all over. Perhaps if the President-elect's media team had also taken time to further expatiate on the claims that that barring was as a result of some "family and security concerns", then that would have been understandable. If it was a particular person or group of persons that convinced him that barring the AIT staff was the way to go, then I see a similar and disastrous trend as was evident in those surrounding the outgoing president forming afresh. The fact that President Obama did something similar in 2011 does  not mean it would work in President-elect's favour in this case. Let's not forget that Fox News is one of the harshest critics ever of President Obama.