Former Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has described the media as the most powerful partner any government can have, stressing that governance goes beyond making policies to effectively communicating them to the people.
He spoke on Thursday in Lagos during a public reading and signing of his new book, Headlines & Soundbites: Media Moments That Defined an Administration. In a statement issued by his media office on Friday, Mohammed said leadership requires constant engagement with citizens.
“Governance is not only about making and implementing decisions,” he said. “It is also about explaining those decisions and convincing the people about their implementation.”
Mohammed, who served for nearly eight years under former President Muhammadu Buhari, explained that he relied heavily on strategic communication to showcase the administration’s achievements and to create avenues for public feedback.
He listed several initiatives introduced during his tenure, including town hall meetings, guided media tours of government projects, engagements with foreign media and international think tanks, stakeholder consultations, testimony series, regular press briefings, and a “scorecard series.”
According to him, the scorecard series which featured 26 ministers presenting their ministries’ achievements over 17 weeks was launched ahead of the 2023 general elections to counter claims that the ruling party had little to show voters.
He said the series ended 11 days before the presidential election and provided campaign materials for candidates across the country.
Mohammed noted that his belief in communication as a strategic governance tool inspired both the title of his book and his decision to document key media moments from the administration.
He urged governments to see the media not as an enemy but as a partner.
“The media, in playing its constitutionally assigned role as watchdog, may be adversarial, but it is never the opposition; it is the amplifier,” he said. “While government may sometimes see the media as a difficult partner, it remains the most powerful partner it will ever have.”
Reflecting on some of his toughest moments in office, Mohammed cited the suspension of Twitter now known as X as one of his most difficult decisions. He admitted he was concerned about the impact on Nigerians who relied on the platform for business and about perceptions regarding freedom of expression.
However, he maintained that national security considerations outweighed those concerns.
“In governance, public interest must always take precedence over individual interest,” he said.
He also described the #EndSARS protests as one of the most challenging periods of his tenure, saying the events reinforced his worries about fake news and disinformation.
Addressing the controversy surrounding the Lekki Toll Gate during the protests, Mohammed reiterated his position that there was no massacre at the site, though he acknowledged that lives were lost in different parts of the country during the unrest.
Mohammed said he wrote the book to give an account of his stewardship and encouraged other public officials to document their experiences for the sake of history.
“I am a strong advocate of Africans telling their own stories from their own perspectives to avoid distortion,” he said, adding that he felt a responsibility to share his side of events after serving at the highest level of government.
The book was officially launched on December 17, 2025, to commemorate what would have been the 83rd birthday of the late Buhari.
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