Hunger: In defence of Bayo Onanuga, By Festus Adedayo

Presidential media adviser and frontline journalist, Bayo Onanuga, is in the eye of the storm. His curt, off-the-cuff, and seemingly unfeeling remark on a television programme last week — “I don’t see the level of hunger people are talking about” — has earned him the rough edges of Nigerian tongues. He didn’t end there. The siege on the country by terrorists, bandits, and kidnappers, Onanuga suggested, is contrived by the media. “The way they report insecurity is as if the entire country is consumed,” he said. To Onanuga, the abduction of 39 pupils and teachers, and the maniacal slitting of Michael Oyedokun’s throat, are seemingly a mirage; perhaps just another of Shakespeare’s farcical plays.