In continuation of what has been described as letter writing season, Chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Tony Anenih, has written an Abuja-based publisher urging media practitioners and opinion leaders to always put the interest of the nation first in their publications.
Anenih made the call in a letter, dated January 17, 2014, addressed to the Chairman of the Leadership Group and Publisher of the Leadership newspaper, Mr Sam Nda-Isaiah over the columnist’s back page article titled: “Is the President Aware That $10.8b Is Still Missing?” in the Monday, January 13, 2014 edition of the paper.
“Though politics has eaten deep into, and ruined the socio-cultural fabric of Nigeria, I urge you and other influential Nigerians in the media to put the interest of the nation first in your publications over and above personal interest and selfish political and sectional agenda which are capable of heating up the polity and leading to pernicious division in our nation,” the PDP BoT chairman said.
Anenih said he is worried by the concentration on negative profiling of President Goodluck Jonathan and his administration while the positive aspects are completely ignored.
In the three-page letter he personally signed, Anenih also expressed concern at what he described as “the several instances of uncomplimentary self-revelations” exhibited by the publisher in the article, which according to him, “spoke more about your uncharitable attitude towards President Goodluck Jonathan than the purported missing $10.8b.”
He said although the NNPC group executive director, Finance and Accounts Directorate, Bernard Otti, has explained the $10.8b expenditures incurred by the corporation, “you deliberately chose to ignore the facts and play to the gallery by repeating the unfortunate smear campaign started by the mistake-prone Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi.”
Source: Daily Trust
