Former Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, says one of the most difficult moments in his eight years in office was the suspension of Twitter, insisting the decision was driven entirely by national interest and not triggered by the deletion of former President Muhammadu Buhari’s tweet.
Speaking in an interview on ARISE News on Wednesday to discuss his new book, Headlines and Soundbites: Media Moments That Defined an Administration, Mohammed said:
“One of the most difficult decisions I took was suspending Twitter’s operation in Nigeria. I had to take the decision on national interest, because a time came when Twitter became the platform of choice for all those who are destabilising the country. There are some decisions like that that you have to take, not because you like them.”
He rejected the widely held belief that Buhari’s deleted tweet was the trigger.
“Honestly, that was not. I went to President Buhari and I asked him, we need to suspend the service of Twitter. And he asked why. He said, is it because they deleted my tweet? I said, no, sir. And I gave him instances and examples.”
Mohammed said he had long warned that unregulated social media could become a national threat.
“I’d been an advocate of regulating the social media for a very long time. I started by advocacy. I started by visiting media houses. I started by trying to work with them. But it was clear in my mind that an unregulated social media could be a disaster. If you monitored me between 2016 and 2023, I was always on the issue of social media. And I kept saying, I’m not trying to stifle free press, but we must regulate the social media.”
Mohammed defended the Buhari administration’s position on EndSARS and the Lekki Toll Gate controversy, insisting he stands by the criticism he issued against CNN.
You mentioned the issue of CNN. And honestly, that pushback, I still stand by it. Nobody ever said nobody died during the EndSARS. People died even in Abuja. They died in Lagos. They died in Kano. But what we were saying is that CNN was not at the tollgate. CNN relied on second-hand thought and information.”
He added:“If a man has a goat and the goat does not come home one night, he will go out and look for that goat. Now, five years on today, nobody has come to tell us that my son or my ward went to the tollgate and didn’t come back. EndSARS was unfortunate, it was tragic, but that there was a massacre at the tollgate is fake news.”
The former minister revealed that the EndSARS period was so turbulent that his family held a meeting and urged him to resign.
“During the EndSARS, one of the toughest moments in my life was when my family met. They had a meeting and they asked me to resign. They were bullied online. They were bullied offline. Their businesses. They’d had enough. They said, look, wait a minute. We are not benefiting from this thing. So why are you exposing us? And I had to sit them down and tell them it’s not as easy as that. There are things I know. There are things that I see that you cannot see.”
Reflecting on his role, Mohammed said one of the biggest challenges was preventing misinformation from overshadowing facts.
“One of the jobs of a communicator, one of the biggest challenges, is how do you prevent fake news and misinformation from overshadowing the real facts?”
He rejected claims that his actions were driven by an attempt to preserve the Buhari administration rather than national interest.
Honestly, Charles, when you are out there, you hardly ever think about self-preservation. Towards the last two years of my office as minister, I couldn’t wait for it to end. When you talk about self-preservation, against whom? Being minister, you always know that there’s an end to a tenure. We never saw preserving the administration as a priority. We saw preserving Nigeria as a priority because there’s a country called Nigeria.”
Mohammed said he consistently engaged the media and the public.
“For eight years, I was on the beat. For eight years, I tried to communicate government to the people, get feedback from them, and take that feedback to government. We organised town hall meetings. I used to meet every fortnight with bureau chiefs. We were meeting every month with the minister of defence, the minister of police affairs, the chief of army staff, inviting editors, discussing issues not meant for publication to build confidence.”
Mohammed said his book aims to document contemporary history from the viewpoint of an insider.
“This book is my own personal effort to write a piece of Nigerian history from a vantage point of the longest-serving Minister of Information and Culture. For eight years, I was privileged to be at the centre of policymaking, government communication, tourism, national orientation and culture. I find it a duty to let Nigerians and the world know what actually happens behind the headlines and soundbites.”
He said it covers his toughest moments, life-changing decisions, and the rescue of major national assets.
“You read about the toughest moments in my career as a minister. Moments when I felt like resigning. Difficult decisions that one had to make. How the iconic National Theatre was rescued from disuse. How we helped prevent P&ID from defrauding Nigeria of $9.6 billion. How we used the media to push back narratives. How we accompanied ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ over Sambisa to see firsthand what the military were doing.”
Mohammed offered personal reflections on former President Buhari, to whom he dedicates a chapter.
In the chapter I dedicated to him, I said mentor, friend and boss. He was all three to me. He did communicate a lot. He was a very loyal person, extremely loyal.”
He recounted anecdotes from before and during Buhari’s presidency, including Buhari teasing him about fasting.
“He called me one day and said, Lai, tell me the truth, how many people have you killed? I said, no. He said, why are you atoning every day by fasting?”
On legacy, Mohammed said posterity would judge Buhari kindly.
“I think posterity will be kind to him. When I came in 2015, certain parts of the country were not even accessible. Of the 20 local governments in Borno State, only seven were with the federal government, 13 were under the complete control of Boko Haram. When you look at what he left, you begin to appreciate that, yes.”
He stressed the difference between Boko Haram and banditry.
“Boko Haram is religiously inspired. Banditry is materially inspired. It has nothing to do with ethnicity or religion.”
Responding with humour, Mohammed recalled how even a grandchild asked him about the ridicule tied to his name.
“One day, one of my grandkids said, Grandpa, tell me the truth. Why do they call you Lai Mohammed?”
He said he never took such jokes personally.
Mohammed noted that in communication, “you must be ahead of the news”.
“When about 200 girls were kidnapped in Dapchi, I didn’t wait for journalists. I went there myself. I went because I wanted to take possession of the narrative. When the Bring Back Our Girls issue was getting toxic, I engaged them. I persuaded them to accompany us on air force sorties over Sambisa so they could see what the military were doing.”
Mohammed said the book will be launched on 17 December, chosen in honour of Buhari.
“We purposely chose the date because it’s the posthumous birthday for Muhammadu Buhari. If he were alive, he would have been 83.”
