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The response by the President's Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to Cardinal John Onaiyekan's television interview reveals a troubling misunderstanding of constitutional democracy. It also exposes a growing tendency within this administration to confuse criticism with disloyalty and accountability with discourtesy.
FEC approvals typically involve Executive Council Memoranda (ECMs) submitted by Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs). Here’s the structured workflow:
The Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration appears to have forgotten that rule in its handling of the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC) controversy. In its determination to destroy the credibility of one man, Prince Adeniyi Matthew Adeyemi, it may have inflicted collateral damage on something far more valuable: the credibility of official government documentation itself.
he backdrop of the interview was heavy: a massive Senate investigation into the "Safe Schools Initiative," a program conceptualized to protect students after the harrowing 2014 Chibok girls tragedy. We are talking about tracking billions of naira and over $30 million in donor funding. It’s the kind of high-stakes scrutiny that should make any public servant sweat through their starch-pressed Agbada.
Reform, when it comes, will be welcomed. The question is whether the reformers are counting the same things Mama Chioma is counting. So far, the evidence suggests they are operating from entirely different ledgers and that only one of those ledgers is written in the ink of lived consequence.
