The Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) has reacted to claims that President Bola Tinubu ordered the removal of the “all eyes on the judiciary” billboards.
Olalekan Fadolapo, director-general of the ARCON, on Saturday, August 19, stated that the presidency, contrary to some viral reports, had no hand in the removal of the billboards.
According to Fadolapo, the steps taken so far by the council, including the suspension of the director and deputy director of regulations, are administrative procedures.
“Our people are extremely biased. Now, this advert has nothing to do with the presidency, I hope we all know this.
“These adverts have a lot to do with the judiciary; it has absolutely nothing to do with the presidency. I don’t know why they would say that the President asked us or the presidency asked us to punish them. How will the presidency interfere with this?
“The presidency has not at any point in time interfered in this issue. This is an administrative procedure. Someone erred and we looked at it to confirm that they erred and you did not fire them. The easiest thing to do is to give them a fair hearing and in the process of giving them a fair hearing, we are asking them to please step down from the offices they are occupying to be able to investigate properly.
“How does the presidency now come into this? The judiciary is supposed to be the one that they will say is influencing us and nobody in the judiciary has even made a statement on this.
“Don’t forget that there are other adverts worse than this on social media that we are even trying to track and pull down, posting some of these judiciary members’ names, their pictures on social media, and all of that. This has absolutely nothing to do with the presidency; the presidency has not interfered and I don’t think the presidency will interfere. The presidency is dealing with so many things and they have given each agency the independence to do their work.”
