Group Controller, Current and Public Affairs, Television Continental (TVC) News, Mr Babajide Kolade Otitoju, has shared insight into the cause of the attack on the station by hoodlum, who hijacked the EndSARS protest.
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TVC and The Nation newspaper believed to be owned by the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu were torched by hoodlums.
This gave rise to widespread insinuation that the attack was politically motivated.
However, Otitoju countered the claim, saying the attack on TVC was not borne out of politics but the station’s refusal to be at the service of the protesters in its reporting of the protest and instead was objective.
He stated this at a public lecture organised by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ), held on Monday, where he was a panelist.
His word, “I think it’s extremely dishonest to attribute the attack on the studio to handiwork of politicians, who do not like a certain Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The truth is that the signs had since been there. For instance, in the early days of the protest, one of our reporters was walked out of a rally once he identified himself as coming from TVC.
“So they had served us all kinds of warnings because we were faced with a different form of censorship. From October 11, they had been telling us that they would burn down our station, and the people behind this were protesters who felt that we were not reporting the protest the way they liked, the way they wanted it reported. I even had to post some stuffs that I had said on TV, in support of the protesters and on Twitter, but they were not placated.”
Continued, “There were a lot of people on social media, who were not interested in a healthy debate, who wanted to see you report events, report activities from their own narrow angle. And once you tried to achieve any form of balance that does not favour them, once you try to be extremely loyal to the truth, you then come under attack.”
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