..Major newspapers copied false online report
By Olawale Lamina
Senator Solomon Adeola of the All Progressives Congress, APC, representing Ogun West anSen. Adeola Misquoted on Buhari Borrowing $400bd chairman of Senate Committee on Appropriations has denounced news report that the administration of the former President Mohammadu Buhari borrowed $400 billion to stabilize the naira against the dollar during his tenure.
Contrary to the report in some major newspapers and some online blogs on Saturday April 26,2025, the Senator at his Town Hall Meeting/ Mega Empowerment Programme with constituents in Ayetoro, Ogun State, (speaking mostly in local Yoruba language), used the occasion to justify the removal of oil subsidy and the floating of the exchange rate by the incumbent administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, arguing that without these bold fiscal policies, Nigerian economy was headed for a collapse.
Senator Adeola stated that previous administrations had spent trillions of naira on fuel subsidy while defending the naira against the dollar, adding that this was only to the benefit of a very negligible number of Nigerians , even as the country then accumulated huge national debt.
A statement by the Media Adviser to Senator Adeola, Chief Kayode Odunaro emphasized that, “at no point did the senator mentioned the name of the former President Buhari or made specific reference to his administration as incurring a debt of $400billion.
“It is therefore clear that the debt figure attributed to former President Buhari administration is a misquotation from reporters’ translation of the senator’s speech from Yoruba to English language.”
The statement noted that the controversial misquotation must have resulted from confusing 40 for 400 in translation as the figure of debt for previous administrations.
“It is also noted that most of the reporters of the major newspapers that reported the misquotation did not personally attend the event and relied on some online blogs for their story,” the media adviser alleged.
The statement concluded by noting that “Senator Adeola holds former President Buhari in high esteem and acknowledge his valiant efforts in piloting the economy under the circumstance he found it during his tenure.”
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