Abati’s grudge with Nigerian journalists

Veteran journalist and former Special Adviser on Media to Goodluck Jonathan, Reuben Abati, has spoken on his grouse with journalists while he served in the presidency.

Abati- who was often maligned during his tenure as the former President’s mouthpiece- said on Monday that many journalists did not understand the delicate and sensitive nature of his former job.

He said the journalists often pressured him to react to some national issues while he was Jonathan’s special adviser.

Speaking in Abeokuta at the 2015 annual lecture of the Ogun State Correspondents’ chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Abati said some journalists covering the State House usually complained that he failed to pick their calls when they needed reactions for national issues.

Abati, however, stated that the journalists failed to come to terms with the fact that he was a government spokesman and not a ‘journalist’, hence he could not express his criticisms and personal conviction.

He said, “Once you are in government, you are no more a journalist. It’s just like a royal court, the king does not go out there, he sends someone to deliver his message to the people. You are an agent to a principal.

“The job of a government spokesman is delicate and sensitive. If you are a careless spokesperson, you will blow up a country. It is not everything that a hunter sees in the bush that he talks about.

“But my colleagues, the journalists, still wanted me to talk as Abati, the columnist or Abati as a panelist in Patito’s Gang. Loquacity is not an asset when you are a government spokesman.”

 

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