In a repeat of our usual feat, President Muhammadu Buhari, this week confirmed the lead story of MMS Plus, titled: “Tinubu Tips Dikko’s Replacement”, in which we broke the news of the voluntary resignation of the immediate past Comptroller-General of Customs, CGC, Dr. Abdullahi Dikko Inde and further reported that there would be a change of guard at the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), with the return of a former General Manager, which happened to be a former Managing Director. Our source had said he shielded the actual identity from the media to avoid scuttling the man’s effort.
Once again, we lived up to our billing as “Beacon of the Sectors.” While others ‘predict’, we make marks, laying beacons with our news items inspired by truth and facts.
What do we call the drama of debates, ignorance and denials that followed the NPA and Dikko’s stories? It is called ‘vindication! Or what do you think?
Dikko sent his resignation letter to the President on Monday, August 3rd, 2015, MMS Plus reported it on Thursday, 6th August, 2015 online. And by 7th and 8th, August, 2015 the story had gone viral online with many news media copying and re-writing same to their tastes. Only one online medium called to acknowledge our good works.
However, some media outlets claimed to have got interviews from the president’s Spokesman, Garba Shehu and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Spokesperson, Wale Adeniyi, both of whom denied that Dikko had not resigned.
We were not perturbed because we knew history would repeat itself. Our source was one of Dikko’s kitchen cabinet members. And MMS Plus had equally noted that Buhari had not accepted his (Dikko’s) letter as at the time of the report.
But on Tuesday 11th August, 2015, the founder of National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF), Dr. Boniface Aniebonam issued a press statement acknowledging that Dikko had confirmed his intended exit from Customs. Expectedly, on Monday 17th, the Customs’ mouthpiece, Adeniyi said in a press release that Buhari had accepted Dikko’s resignation, a veiled confirmation of our story, and on Tuesday 18th, as we had reported, Dikko left Customs in grand style. Need we say more? Others report events, we make footprints. We don’t predict!
On NPA, MMS Plus had reported the imminent change with specifics. But a management staff in a discussion with the publisher in Abuja had expressed doubt about the possibility of having another Northerner in NPA in the event of change, given the geo-political imbalance in the current appointments in the sector’s parastatals. The publisher maintained the report. Is Habib not a Northerner and a former Managing Director?
Recall that we announced the removal of the former Managing Director of NPA, Mallam Mohammed Abdulsalam and the coming of Engr. Omar Suleiman, just as we had reported Suleiman’s exit.
In the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), just when Adeniran Aderugba was settling down as the Acting Director-General in expectation of his confirmation, having lobbied hard, MMS Plus reported that a substantive DG was coming. Of course, Patrick Apkobolokemi came.
MMS Plus, over time, has proven that it is a paper to beat in highly sourced information as a medium on leadership matters for stakeholders and investors, your true bridge to the seat of power. The spokesmen trail MMS Plus for information. One of them had asked the publisher, “How did you get the information?”
Despite these feats, we are proudly humble in our developmental, investigative and reformative journalism.
We thank you for believing in us.
