Garba Shehu, senior special assistant to the president on
media and publicity, says there is nothing wrong in having “cabals” around
President Muhammadu Buhari.
Speaking with reporters in Abuja on Sunday, Shehu said every
government around the world had such people.
He said, “What is the meaning of a cabal? I just googled the
Thesaurus and among many other definitions, what they are saying is that a
cabal means ‘conspire, intrigues, mystique, occult, secret.’
“There is no government in this country that we have had
that some people were not accused of being a cabal in that government and it is
because every administration and every president must have a secretariat.
“Every president must have people who advise him. It is not
a sin, it is not an offence to have people that you take into confidence.
“Elsewhere, they call it ‘kitchen cabinet,’ but in our own
country, we are being derogatory and we term them cabals so that it will
tarnish their own good standing.”
Shehu said many of the people that were wrongly referred to
as members of cabals were successful people, who were making extreme sacrifices
to serve in government.
“Some of them have no need to be around government. In fact,
to some of our elite, the President is a bad man because you cannot go to him
and say give me oil well and he will sign the paper and give you,” he said.
“So, we understand the game that is playing out and there is
always a price, in any case, to pay for that kind of exposure. Even the kind of
things that are being said of the President himself, if he did not offer
himself to serve, people would not even have the chance to say them against
him. So, we will live with it, we will accept it because it goes with the
territory.”
Shehu also laid emphasis on the need to regulate social
media, saying it had become a problem for many families because the rights of
women and children were being abused.
“There is a need to protect vulnerable members of the
society. There is a need to protect those in the minority, whether tribal or
religious, in our own country,” he said.
“So, it makes sense that you, as media stakeholders, come
around the Minister of Information and Culture and formulate the kind of
regulation you want so that it is not a top bottom approach, so that government
will not be accused of imposing a regulatory mechanism on the media.
“The minister is saying come, sit down with me and let us
talk about it. And I was told that the day he called on members of the Nigerian
Union of Journalists, they walked out on him. If that report is true, I think
it is very unfortunate.”
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