The Presidency has condemned in strong terms a publication on Nigeria in the current edition of Foreign Affairs, entitled: “The Giant of Africa is Failing,” which it described as “unfair both to a magazine with such an esteemed pedigree and to its readers.”
In a statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in which was reproduced a letter of complaint sent to the publishers, the Presidency noted that Ambassador John Campbell had been predicting the collapse of Nigeria for several years, even where events consistently prove him wrong.
“But facts should not be bent to support distorted opinions,” Shehu said.
He cited a portion of the publication where the authors wrote that President Muhammadu Buhari at an April meeting with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken requested that the headquarters of the US Africa Command be moved from Germany to Nigeria to bolster the fight against jihadi groups.
But this, Shehu insisted, is a distortion.
He said: “President Buhari did not request that AFRICOM move to Nigeria. The transcript of the call with Secretary Blinken is available on the State Department’s own website.
“It’s not just a question of the invented addition of ‘to Nigeria’ with regard to AFRICOM. It sums up a piece that attempts – subtly but revealingly – to shift facts to suit an argument.”
He said Nigeria faces multiple challenges, including dissemination of fake news and prejudiced opinions, but that it was not expected that a respected magazine like Foreign Affairs would join that fray.
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