By Alade Kareem
The Group CEO of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, has been embroiled in yet another financial scandal. Reports alleged that he has spent at least N20 million to sponsor falsehoods against Lagos-based prophet Primate Elijah Ayodele in the media.
Primate Ayodele had, in a video, advised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to dismiss Mele Kyari as CEO of NNPC if he wanted Nigerians to pray for him, as the national oil company has performed poorly under Kyari's leadership.
In response to Primate Ayodele’s advice, Mele Kyari launched media attacks against the prophet by disseminating articles full of falsehoods and bribing media practitioners to publish them, aiming to protect his reputation from ‘embarrassment.’
Unfortunately, these deceptions were exposed when a blogger discovered that the content shared against Primate Ayodele was a rehash of what Femi Adesina, a former spokesperson for ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, had similarly used to attack Primate Ayodele in 2021 while defending the former president.
Rattled by the exposure of their false content, NNPCL, under Mele Kyari’s leadership, increased its efforts to distribute the content, spending even more money.
According to confirmed WhatsApp messages seen by the blogger, some media practitioners were ‘bribed’ with as little as N10,000 to publish the content, while notable platforms received N200,000 and above, depending on the contact. Smaller blogs were given N5,000 to publish the article against Primate Elijah Ayodele.
Sadly, the Guardian Newspaper, which prides itself on being ‘Nurtured by Truth,’ published the false article without proper verification, as journalism requires.
In total, more than 70 media organizations were contracted and paid to publish the content against Primate Ayodele, courtesy of NNPCL’s Mele Kyari, all to avoid personal embarrassment.