Presidential Media Aide, Mr. Garba Shehu has labelled correspondents covering the Aso Rock Villa as mere irresponsible writers who would probably make better fiction writers than journalists following media reports of a fight between top government officials at the State House.
The presidency also denied that there is a feud between the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari and the Head of Service of the Federation, Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita.
Shehu insisted that it was impossible for the conversation between Kyari, and Oyo-Ita to have been heard by any journalist, as the distance between the State House correspondents and the two government officials as they addressed the Vice President at Wednesday’s FEC meeting, would have made their conversation completely inaudible to the journalists.
It insisted that it was taking the matter beyond what it is to suggest that mere debate and argument over issues, translated to a feud, a fight or a clash.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Shehu, stated this in a short meeting with State House Correspondents at the Media Center, to appeal to them to be responsible in their reportage of the number one seat of power in the country.
“By tradition, the media organizations send their best reporters to the State House. This should reflect, at all times on the quality of reporting.
“I am a journalist myself, and in journalism, you are not supposed to report anything other than the facts of what you heard or observed directly, or what you were told by a firsthand or authoritative eyewitness,” he said.
“You cannot add two and two to make twenty-two and present it to the public as news.”
According to him, “People can debate and argue over issues, but to suggest that there was a feud, a fight or a clash was to take matters beyond what they were.”
Shehu also denied categorically any suggestion that the two government officials had been summoned to see the President over the alleged skirmish, referring to that conclusion as yet another example of conjecture.
“Top government officials of that calibre see the President on a regular basis. To suggest that they were summoned to see him as a result of a so-called feud is just a fabrication, a conclusion that is below the level of responsible journalism that we expect from our State House correspondents,” he said.