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Presidency Reacts To Punch Newspaper’s Stand On Buhari Administration 

The Presidency has responded to The Punch Newspaper editorial in which it said it’s taken a stand on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration.

Punch which proud itself as one of Nigeria’s most widely read newspapers, in an editorial published on Wednesday December 11,  highlighted some of the instances where the Buhari administration had violated court orders including in the treatment of an activist and Publisher of Sahara Reporters, Omoyele Sowore.

In the editorial titled Buhari’s lawlessness: Our stand,’ the newspaper said it would henceforth refer to the president by his last military title when he ruled Nigeria as a military dictator.

“As a symbolic demonstration of our protest against autocracy and military-style repression, PUNCH (all our print newspapers, The PUNCH, Saturday PUNCH, Sunday PUNCH, PUNCH Sports Extra, and digital platforms, most especially Punchng.com) will henceforth prefix Buhari’s name with his rank as a military dictator in the 80s, Major General, and refer to his administration as a regime, until they purge themselves of their insufferable contempt for the rule of law,” it wrote.

ALSO READ: Aisha Buhari Attacks Garba Shehu, Says He’s Gone Beyond His Boundary

However, in a statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, the Presidency said it’s another testimony to press freedom in Nigeria under Buhari-led administration.

Read the full statement below:

ANOTHER TESTIMONY TO PRESS FREEDOM IN NIGERIA, BY PRESIDENCY

A newspaper says it will henceforth address President Muhammadu Buhari by his military rank of Major General. Nothing untoward in it. It is a rank the President attained by dint of hard work before he retired from the Nigerian Army. And today, constitutionally, he’s also Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.

All over the world, just as in our country, a large number of retired military officers are now democrats. It does not make those who didn’t pass through military service better democrats than them.

Rather than being pejorative, addressing President Buhari by his military rank is another testimony to free speech and freedom of the press, which this administration (or regime, if anyone prefers: it’s a matter of semantics) has pledged to uphold and preserve.

Femi Adesina
Special Adviser to the President
(Media and Publicity)
December 11, 2019

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