Media Censorship: Presidency accuses Peoples Gazette of ‘lying everyday’

Presidential spokesperson, Femi Adesina has accused the Peoples Gazette, an online newspaper of lying a lot when addressing claims that the Federal government’s alarm of a smear campaign against the administration is a ploy to affect to provide a justification on the clamp down on the media.

Peoplesgazette.com a newly launched news website was on Tuesday blocked on 9mobile, Glo and MTN networks in Nigeria and concerns rise over the blockage.

Mr Samuel Ogundipe, the founder of the website in an interview with NewsWireNGR on Tuesday said, “We observed as of 7:00 p.m. that our website was no longer accessible to people on MTN and Glo, meaning a vast majority of Internet users in Nigeria”.

Checks by NewsWireNGR showed that users using the aforementioned networks can only access the website that prides itself as “TRUTH COURAGE OR NOTHING” only via VPN but the website was still accessible through 9mobile.

Appearing as a guest on Arise News, an Arise TV programme on Monday, Adesina allayed fears that the Buhari administration might be tyrannical against the media.

He said, “This government has never clamped down in the media and it will never do. I can assure you that this government will never tamper with the freedom of the press and independence of the press.

“And if any columnist (Farooq Kperogi) is alleging that, he is within his right to allege whatever he wants.

He then alleged that the Peoples Gazette had published false reports about him and several people.

“And the blog you mentioned, the online newspaper, Peoples Gazette is a paper that lies every day.  It has lied against me, it has lied against several people. So why should we bother ourselves with a publication that is full of lies?”

Amid a search for solution, Premium Times on Friday reported that the trouble online news platform has temporarily changed its URL from https://peoplesgazette.com/ to https://www.gazettengr.com/. However, checks by NewsWireNGR at the time of filing this story revealed that some users are still restricted access to the website.