USA Africa Dialogue Series - WHEN PUBLIC OFFICIALS CHOOSE THE QUESTIONS

WHEN PUBLIC OFFICIALS CHOOSE THE QUESTIONS

The Lere Olayinka episode is not merely a dispute over interview style. It raises a deeper question about political communication, media accountability and the conditions under which democratic scrutiny takes place.

John Onyeukwu, Lawyer, Governance and Social Impact Practitioner

A recent episode on Arise TV's Morning Show involving Lere Olayinka, spokesperson to FCT Minister Nyesom Wike, deserves attention beyond the personalities involved. During the programme, Olayinka reportedly objected to questions from co-anchor Rufai Oseni and indicated that he would only engage with “reasonable human beings.” When he persisted in declining to answer Oseni, co-anchor Ayo Mairo-Ese intervened, explaining that the programme had three anchors and could not continue on terms that excluded one of them. The interview was subsequently brought to an end.

The immediate reaction has understandably centred on whether Olayinka was justified in objecting to Oseni's approach and whether the programme's handling of the exchange was appropriate. Those are legitimate questions, but they risk reducing an important institutional issue to another personality contest in Nigeria's increasingly polarised media environment. The more consequential question is this: what happens to democratic accountability when a public spokesperson begins to determine not only what government says, but also who is sufficiently acceptable to question it?

A government spokesperson occupies a peculiar position in democratic governance. He is a political communicator, but he is also an institutional intermediary between government and the public. His responsibility is therefore not simply to protect the image of the political principal he represents. It is to explain public decisions, provide information, defend policy choices and respond to legitimate criticism. That responsibility becomes particularly important when the spokesperson enters a public forum in which journalists are expected to interrogate the government's position.

This is why the distinction between political communication and public accountability matters. Political communication seeks to persuade. It seeks to present a government's actions in the most favourable light and to build public support for its policies. Public accountability, however, demands something more demanding: explanation that can withstand scrutiny. A spokesperson may quite properly seek to persuade the audience, but persuasion cannot become a substitute for answering legitimate questions.

The difficulty arises when public officials begin to regard challenging questions as illegitimate simply because they come from journalists whose style, politics or assumptions they dislike. A spokesperson is perfectly entitled to challenge a question, reject its premise or point out factual errors. What becomes problematic is the attempt to determine in advance which journalist is sufficiently “reasonable” to deserve an answer. If that principle were widely accepted, every public official could effectively construct a preferred media environment in which scrutiny is limited to sympathetic interviewers and agreeable questions.

That would fundamentally alter the character of public accountability. Citizens do not have the luxury of selecting which government policies they will encounter. They are affected by taxation, regulation, public spending, security policy, infrastructure decisions and administrative choices regardless of whether they agree with the government. The representatives of that government therefore have a corresponding obligation to explain those decisions in environments where their claims may be challenged.

Indeed, the competence of a spokesperson is arguably demonstrated most clearly when the questions are uncomfortable. A government that has evidence for its position should be able to present that evidence. A policy that is defensible should survive critical interrogation. A factual error should be capable of correction. An unfair premise should be capable of being dismantled with facts and reason. The ability to do this under pressure is not a weakness in political communication; it is one of its highest forms.

But the obligation to answer does not give journalists unlimited licence. The media performs a democratic function only when it combines independence with professional responsibility. Persistent questioning is not the same thing as personal hostility, and adversarial journalism should not become an excuse for abandoning fairness, verification or proportion. A journalist may aggressively interrogate a claim without turning the interview into a personal confrontation.

This is important because democratic accountability depends on the quality of both institutions in the exchange. The public official must be willing to withstand scrutiny, while the journalist must be willing to conduct scrutiny responsibly. The objective should not be to humiliate the guest or defeat the interviewer. It should be to expose claims to sufficient questioning that the public can make a better-informed judgement.

That is why the intervention by Mairo-Ese is institutionally significant. Whatever one's assessment of Oseni's interviewing style, a guest cannot reasonably be permitted to redefine the editorial structure of a programme in real time. If the programme operates through three anchors, the guest cannot unilaterally designate one of them as legitimate and another as illegitimate. The broadcaster has an institutional responsibility to determine the terms under which its programme operates.

There is, however, a much larger Nigerian problem behind this episode. Political communication has increasingly become an exercise in narrative management. Government statements are often crafted primarily to win the day's political argument. Critics are characterised as enemies, inconvenient questions as attacks, and unfavourable facts as political propaganda. Social media has intensified the problem by rewarding confrontation, certainty and outrage far more readily than nuance, evidence and institutional explanation.

The consequence is a political communication environment in which the spokesperson is sometimes judged by how effectively he defends the political principal rather than by how accurately and convincingly he explains government. That is a dangerous shift. A spokesperson who never concedes a weakness may be politically useful, but a public communication system in which every fact must be defended and every criticism dismissed eventually deprives citizens of the information they need to evaluate government performance.

The deeper issue, therefore, is not whether Lere Olayinka should appear again on Arise TV, nor whether Rufai Oseni is the ideal interviewer for a particular guest. Those are editorial and personal questions. The StateCraft question is institutional: what rules should govern the relationship between public officials and the media in a democracy?

The answer should be clear. Public officials should have the right to correct journalists, challenge their premises and object to unfair treatment. They should not, however, acquire a right to determine the identity of legitimate interrogators simply because they find a particular journalist difficult or disagreeable. Equally, broadcasters should protect their editorial independence while ensuring that their journalism remains rigorous, fair and evidence-based.

Nigeria does not need political spokespersons who are incapable of engaging difficult questions. It needs spokespersons capable of demonstrating why their government's position deserves public confidence even when the questions are uncomfortable. It also needs media institutions confident enough to ask those questions without becoming instruments of political mobilisation themselves.

The real test of democratic communication is therefore not whether government and media agree. They should not always agree. It is whether disagreement can occur within an institutional framework that preserves facts, scrutiny and respect for the public's right to know.

A spokesperson may choose his message. A broadcaster may choose its format. A journalist may choose the questions.

But in a democracy, neither government nor the media should be allowed to choose whether the public gets meaningful accountability.

John Onyeukwu 

September 04, 2026

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John Onyeukwu
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