Fintiri’s aide,Muhammad Tukur attacks The Finder over ‘fact check report’ on the governor
SENIOR Special Assistant on New Media to Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, Muhammad Tukur has attacked The Finder Newspaper over its fact check report that severally punctured most of the statement credited to the governor since he assumed office 11 months ago.
The FINDER had published a fact check report on Tuesday expressing discontent over most of the promises made by the Fintiri administration but was not kept.
“One year after taking the oath of office, Governor Fintiri has made more than 3,159 false or misleading claims — a milestone that would have been unthinkable when we first created the Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement he has uttered.,” FINDER wrote.
But in response to the stand of the newspaper, Tukur said The FINDER’s reckless outburst against Gov. Fintiri of Adamawa state was a sign of freedom of expression in Adamawa under Fintiri’s administration as opined by the governor himself, when he gave press free hand to criticise him.
Tukur had said “rather than being pejorative, addressing Governor Fintiri as a liar by the FINDER newspaper is another testimony to free speech and freedom of the press, which this administration (or regime, if anyone prefers: it is a matter of semantics) has pledged to uphold and preserve”.
Tukur noted that in some state in Nigeria where freedom of expression is not allowed, newspapers do not publish articles such as the one FINDER did, nor do they get to express political opinions contrary to that of government.
He said that The FINDER should not allow its personal hatred stand against the good judgement of Fintiri’s administration.
“Its personal hatred for and animus towards Governor Fintiri should not be allowed to becloud its good judgment,” he wrote on facebook.
Questioning the newspaper’s decision, Tujur said “is it within the paper’s responsibility or power to hold the governor accountable to the public? Does that mean any newspaper is free to address the governor as a liar?”
He said although there is nothing wrong with expressing contrary opinions to the Fintiri’s administration but calling a governor a liar for restating his plan to move Adamawa state forward is a ‘totally different matter’.
“We welcome your contribution to the debate, but we ask you not to throw insults at the good voters of Adamawa for not agreeing to your choice at the last election,” Tukur wrote.
In Fintiri’s defence, Tukur said that The FINDER did not change title of former former governor Jibrilla Bindow to a liar when he promised to build airport at Mubi and to renovate the Yola international hotel.
He added that the newspaper did not challenge Bindow when the people were crying for the injustice meted to them by the past administration.
“Finder Newspaper’s double standards in cuddling some of our past governor and their open contempt for Governor fintiri clearly show that the newspaper has sinister motives for its current curious fact check judgment,” he further added
He urged the newspaper to separate journalism from partisan politics adding that The FINDER’s fact check on the governor was purely political designed to play to the gallery and cause confusion.
“Your figures and projections couple with the false parameters used absolutely prove that you are totally biased and mischievous, working to compromise genuine, facts and blatant proves just to mislead the good people of Adamawa State.
“This has proved beyond reasonable doubt, that you are a biased media platform that always goes contrary to the dictates and rudiments of the journalism profession, if you can truly claim to be one. You’re lacking in the discipline of verification and balancing are quite simply anarchical”.
“For Governor Umaru Fintiri to make 2,159 false or misleading claims in one year, an average of five daily is laughable. Indeed it will take an average of ten seconds in minutes to do so by anybody.
“This is because the Finder claimed they measure whatever statements made by the governor. What you refer as “false claims” is nothing but “statement of emphasis”, “statement of fact” or “reminder”. When a leader emphasizes or declares an intention to do something doesn’t mean he is claiming. By the way, we disagree with your news content in which you refer to as false claims made by the Governor.
“The Finders claim that the Governor promised to construct 2000-capacity hostel in ADSU, build 2000 houses, defeated shilla boys, covert College for Legal Studies, Yola to a faculty of law ADSU, build flyover bridges, claimed to fulfilled all his campaign promises, and also distort fact about Adamawa debt profile, monthly deductions of over one billion to service the debt among others.
“It is not right for the FINDER to compare Gov. Fintiri’s 11 months in office with the four years of Jibrilla Bindow, we challengethe FINDER to allow Governor Fintiri to finish his first four years tenure without achieving them before you resorting to campaign of calumny against the office of the governor of Adamawa state. It’s unjustifiable to compare these few promises with what Bindow Jibirilla failed to achieve within four year tenure.
“Let’s look at the issue of Federal Account Allocation to Adamawa. In your so-called findings, you said from June 2019 to April 2020, Governor Fintiri has collected over 43billion naira more than 33billion that former Governor Jibirilla Bindow collected from June 2015 to May 2016, but Governor Fintiri has nothing to show within his one hundred days in office compared to what has Bindow achieved. It’s simple; your summation is wrong as Bindow has never allowed local governments to have their allocation, diverting it all plus that of the state government.
“Moreover, I challenge you to publish what each local government collected under Bindow administration with palpable evidence from local government’s administration officers. You see if we can calculate it well, Bindow has collected almost double of what Fintiri collected in one year.
“Governor Umaru Fintiri upon assumption into office granted full financial autonomy to local governments as he promised. Today, all each of our 21 local governments is receiving their monthly allocation close to 200 million naira each.
“Today, most of our local government chairmen are busy providing dividends of democracy to the masses. Local governments have S.A programmes providing stipends to not less than one hundred people. Salary of local government’s staff and primary healthcare workers is no longer an issue.
To be continue…..
Muhammad B. Tukur Gcfr
SSA (New Media) to the Executive Governor
12/05’2020