Nigerian Govt Attacks Media For Exposing The Fraud’ In School Feeding Programme Of The Govt!

The official Twitter handle of Nigeria’s presidential seat of power @AsoRock and @DigiCommsNG – the governance communications Twitter mouthpiece of the Nigerian Presidency – on Monday, October 23, 2017 launched a series of online attacks against Nigerian online newspaper, Signal, thetrentonline.com reports.

The two Twitter accounts descended on Signal with diatribes for reposting a video that details elements of fraud and incompetence in the execution of the Nigerian Government’s School Feeding Programme.

In the video, below, a citizen shows a pitiable piece of bread and what is passed as “stew” which is prepared and distributed to children in a school. The citizen reporter clearly indicates that what she is recording is the Buhari government school feeding programme in an unidentified school.
Ads information and privacThe video which had gone viral in the Nigerian social media since Sunday evening was reposted by the online platform on its Twitter handle @thesignalng on Monday morning drawing a lot of commentary from Nigerians in the social media.
Apparently worried by the negative publicity the video was generating for the federal government, federal government Twitter accounts, managed by Tolu Ogunlesi, a former journalist, resorted to labeling Signalas a purveyor of fake news. Curiously, in their attempt at pushback, nothing in the government communication efforts presented any evidence of the said video being fake.
In a rather condescending tweet at @thesignalng, @DigiCommsNG tweeted; “Someone has put together a random video of a random food vendor, and is getting @thesignalng to share it and mislead the public. #FakeNews”. In response, @thesignalng responded; “DELETE this account. #FakeGovt”.
Here is what looks like a twitter war between the media house and the official Nigerian government twitter handle since the fraud was exposed:
It is a hallmark of your incompetence that the said video trended on Nigerian social media before it was posted on our platform.  https://twitter.com/digicommsng/status/922497881432522752 
You wouldn't even recognize irresponsible journalism if you saw it. The media deals with facts. Make your clarifications with FACTS ONLY. https://twitter.com/digicommsng/status/922493662872907776 
Since you have the authentic videos and pictures of the School Feeding Programme, could you kindly share with the public? Thanks. https://twitter.com/digicommsng/status/922472341287899136 
Hope you take this as a crash course in Governance Communication. Your job IS NOT to attack media houses but to clarify issues with FACTS. https://twitter.com/digicommsng/status/922493045920198657 
This is not the first time the Nigerian Presidency would resort to using its official communications platforms to attack Nigerian media organizations. With thetrentonline.com

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