Economic Crisis Is Being Exaggerated – Bayo Onanuga

The Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Bayo Onanuga has said that reports of economic hardship in Nigeria are being exaggerated by the media to discredit the Muhammadu Buhari administration.

Onanuga also dismissed the news reports of economic crisis as “mere propaganda” being sponsored by the opposition.

The NAN MD made the comments via a Facebook post on Tuesday, September 6, 2016.
He said:
“I was in Bauchi and Jos at the weekend, I also found that food was cheap everywhere. In our hotel, we paid about N700 for a plate of semovita, or eba with a choice of cat fish or chicken.”

“On the roadside, I found to my surprise that with just N1000, I bought over 50 oranges, two giant water melon and 10 pieces of sweet potato. I had experienced a similar thing in the market at Abuja, where I found that with N1, 400, I could make a big vegetable soup, with tomato, pepper and roasted Titus fish.”

“Are the media and bloggers really painting a correct image of our country? It’s time for the media to objectively conduct a reality check about our reports, whether we are not over sensationalizing so-called hardship that we talked about.”

“My daughter was on the Virgin Atlantic Flight that took off from Lagos to London today. I asked her to find out whether the plane was filled up or going to London near empty judging by the noisy campaign from a section of the country about the ‘hardship’ in our country.

“My daughter sent back this one-line text, after boarding: “daddy, the flight was filled up o. This makes me to wonder whether all the seeming orchestrated campaign in the media was not mere propaganda to make the Buhari regime look really bad.”

Onanuga was appointed as NAN MD by Buhari in May 2016.