The Bola Tinubu administration intends to quiet the media in anticipation of the disclosure of investigations conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States, according to Phrank Shaibu, Atiku Abubakar’s Special Assistant on Public Communication.

In a statement released on Sunday, Shaibu said that Tinubu’s administration was preparing a significant offensive in reaction to the scandal at Chicago State University.

In his criticism of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), he insisted that the threat to penalize Arise News Television was just the beginning.

He accused NBC of bias, citing its silence while media outlets affiliated with Nigeria’s president, such as Television Continental (TVC), regularly attacked Atiku.

“Back in February, NBC tried to show a bit of fairness and fined TVC for unprofessional broadcasts, including the airing of the joint media directorate of the APC Presidential Campaign Council press briefing where Festus Keyamo said Obasanjo and Atiku ran a criminal enterprise and an empire of fraud in Abuja”, he said.

Shaibu added that the NBC’s impartiality had weakened since Tinubu took office, implying that the NBC boss, Balarabe Ilelah, is now aligning with the APC and its influence in the Presidential Villa. Shaibu accused NBC of conspiring to stifle media coverage of Tinubu’s certificate crisis.

He emphasised the importance of the media, particularly in light of incoming FBI documents reportedly linking Tinubu to heroin trafficking, emphasising the need for mainstream media sources, not just social media, to disseminate this information.

He called the Tinubu administration’s and the APC-led Senate’s hypocrisy “legendary.”