The Special Assistant on Media and Public Affairs to former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, Julius Bokoru, has questioned the pattern of reports on allegations linking his principal to an alleged coup plot.
Bokoru, in a statement on Friday, said some media coverage of the matter had gone beyond ordinary investigative reporting and appeared to be reinforcing a particular narrative against Sylva.
Bokoru said he had been unable to establish contact with his principal since the controversy began but stressed that his statement was not intended as an attack on investigative journalism.
“Nigerian journalism has, at its best, played a courageous and indispensable role in holding governments, institutions and powerful individuals to account,” Bokoru said.
He, however, urged journalists and media organisations to also scrutinise the sources and methods behind information supplied to them.
“What we are witnessing from some media organisations, especially Premium Times, in this matter has gone beyond ordinary reporting.
The allegations have been repeatedly serialised, repackaged and amplified in a manner that increasingly gives the impression of a deliberate campaign to cement a particular narrative in the public mind.”
Bokoru queried the source and timing of materials reportedly forming the basis of some media reports.
“Where are these materials coming from? Who is supplying them? Why are sensitive investigative documents appearing in carefully sequenced installments? And why does virtually every new report seem calculated to reinforce the same conclusion about Sylva, even though the allegations have yet to be established in court?” he asked.
Bokoru said he was not accusing any media organisation, including Premium Times, of being sponsored by any individual or organisation because he had no evidence to support such a claim.
“I will say plainly that the pattern of this coverage increasingly raises the uncomfortable question of whether some organisations are pursuing their own stories or, knowingly or otherwise, acting from someone else’s script,” he said.
Bokoru maintained that allegations contained in investigative materials should not be presented as established facts, insisting that guilt could only be determined through due legal process.
“There is also a fundamental distinction that should never be blurred: an allegation is not evidence; an investigator’s theory is not a conviction; and a statement contained in an investigative file is not a judicial finding of guilt,” he said.
He urged organisations interested in reporting the matter to allow any evidence against Sylva to be properly tested, saying that if there was a prosecutable case, the appropriate authorities should bring it before the courts.
“If there are allegations, report them as allegations,” Bokoru insisted.
He expressed concern that the repeated publication of allegations could amount to prosecuting the matter in the court of public opinion, where, he noted, there was no cross-examination or formal testing of evidence.
He warned that repeated publication of an allegation did not automatically transform it into proof.
