The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has expressed concerns over alleged directive by Governor Ayodele Fayose banning all its fully paid adverts and jingles on state-owned radio and television stations.
In a statement in Ado Ekiti on Tuesday, the state APC Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatubosun, described the action as “a bastardisation of media professional ethic and abuse of contract agreement between the stations and their clients.”
Olatubosun criticised the governor’s aide on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, for allegedly turning the stations into a personal property of his boss.
“The stations have become a laboratory for manufacturing falsehoods against high ranking government officials in the Judiciary and Legislature perceived to be against Fayose’s administration.
“The stations in one of their news bulletins in November 2014 accused the Chief Judge, Mr. Justice Ayodeji Daramola, of collecting N200m bribe from APC National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to influence the judge sitting on Fayose’s eligibility case to rule against him.
“About the same time, allegation that the 19 APC members of the House of Assembly demanded N135m from the governor was also broadcast on the stations. All these were without evidence.”
However, Olayinka in his reaction denied the claim saying adverts and jingles of the APC and its candidates were being used on the state broadcasting stations.
“The allegation is not true. We have been using their adverts and jingles inasmuch as they are ready to pay the rate.
“Even as of this morning (Tuesday), if you listened to the stations, we still carried the adverts and jingles of the APC candidates,” he said.
Olatubosun also accused Olayinka of habitual unprofessional conduct by approving fabricated stories for private producers and presenters of a popular Yoruba newspaper review programme ‘Lati Inu Aka’ to broadcast on their newspapers review programmes.
“We condemn the ban on APC’s jingles on the order of Mr. Fayose who has become intolerant of the opposition. We wish to remind him that when he was in the opposition, his jingles and adverts for his campaign rallies, which he paid for, were aired regularly on the stations.
“We want to remind Fayose that the prominent Ekiti citizens who he has now shut out of the stations because they hold different political views were the ones who contributed money for the take off of the stations when Fayose had not dreamt of contesting the governorship of the state.
“While all jingles and rallies of PDP candidates were aired without charge, BSES routinely prevented Ekiti people from accessing information by skipping its news at 12 noon and 3pm because of PDP presidential rallies.”
Olatubosun urged NBC to caution Fayose and Olayinka, saying they must restore APC adverts without further delay while equal airtime should be given to opposition parties on the state media. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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