The Director-General, Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria, Dr Olalekan Fadolapo, has said that President Bola Tinubu has no hand in the removal of the ‘All Eyes on the Judiciary’ billboard adverts nationwide as well as the dissolution and the suspension of the Advertising Standard Panel directors and Secretariat.
Speaking in an interview with a national newspaper, the Director- General said that the President has not at any point in time interfered in this issue.
His words,”Our people are extremely biased. Now, this advert has nothing to do with the presidency, I hope we all know this. These adverts have a lot to do with the judiciary; it has absolutely nothing to do with the presidency. I don’t know why they would say that the President asked us or the presidency asked us to punish them. How will the presidency interfere with this? The presidency has not at any point in time interfered in this issue.
”This is an administrative procedure. Someone erred and we looked at it to confirm that they erred and you did not fire them. The easiest thing to do is to give them a fair hearing and in the process of giving them a fair hearing, we are asking them to please step down from that offices they are occupying to be able to investigate properly. How does the presidency now come into this? The judiciary is supposed to be the one that they will say is influencing us and nobody in the judiciary has even made a statement on this.
”Don’t forget that there are other adverts worse than this on social media that we are even trying to track and pull down, posting some of these judiciary members’ names, their pictures on social media, and all of that. This has absolutely nothing to do with the presidency; the presidency has not interfered and I don’t think the presidency will interfere. The presidency is dealing with so many things and they have given each agency the independence to do their work.
”I’ve not been summoned, I’ve not been requested to do anything. This is an administrative thing and except there’s something that they think should have been done by us and haven’t been done. They err, we suspended them from the office, and the people that are providing the administrative support, we said okay, leave that position and let us investigate because the omission could have caused us a lot. We will give you a fair hearing, appear before a committee, review the entire process and you’ll come back to us. The presidency has nothing to do with this”, he said.
