Tolu Ogunlesi Charged Government Ministries and Agencies to Always be the First Source of their Information

Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Digital and New Media, Tolu Ogunlesi on Monday charged public office holders to take the responsibility of being the first source of any information they intend to pass to the public through their social media handles, to ensure credibility of such information.

Tolu Ogunlesi was of the opinion that the media aides of ‘goverment people’ as he referred to the public office holders in Nigeria,  have not been performing to their expectations as regards their responsibilities. 

The SA to President Buhari said it was ridiculous to the part of some media aides when their boss would have to post a link to their original information on the social media, adding that a press release through the social media handles of these ‘government people’ would have been better and credible. 

“Frustrating to see news of an important government press release or PUBLIC information circulating and hours later you can’t find any original mention of it on ANY of the social media handles of specific agency or Ministry concerned. We all have to do better, government people.

“And no I’m not talking about you posting a news link reporting your own press release. Has always struck me how odd it is for government agencies to post links to news stories about statements they’ve issued, without themselves putting up the original information. Unacceptable.

“If you directly put up the press release or the announcement you won’t need to be posting links to news stories that more often than not misunderstand or distort the original announcement. It’s not rocket science.