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A pressure group, Integrity Forum, has accused the Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed of abuse of office and manipulation of agencies under him to fight personal political battles.
“We have observed an unfortunate pattern of abuse of office by the Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed and his manipulation of the federal government agencies, especially the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), a federal parastatal under him, to fight his personal political battles in Kwara State,” the group said in a statement in Ilorin by its coordinator Abdullateef Babafila.
The body said the Minister has been mounting pressures on various federal government’s media houses under him to unfairly profile the Governor of Kwara State Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq and his administration despite its sterling performance.
It however commended the patriotism and professionalism of some of these agencies who it said have so far resisted the bullying tactics of the Minister.
“Sources who are fed up with the pretentious nature of Alhaji Lai Mohammed have disclosed how he has arm-twisted the leadership of the NAN to deploy a special team to Kwara whose assignment is to continuously write slanted reports in favour of his own political camp while the other camp is portrayed in bad light. An example of this is a recent interview by the special team in which a chieftain of the party gave a biased view of the situation in the party without the NAN deeming it fit to speak to the other party.
