Oak TV apologises for releasing Lai Mohammed’s El-Zakzaky footage

Barely 24 hours after a News platform, Oak Tv, published a footage of Nigeria’s minister of information, Lai Mohammed, the platform has apologised for doing so.

The platform Wednesday released a video of Mohammed making a claim that Nigeria government spends about N3.5 million monthly to feed a Shiite cleric, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky, while addressing some journalists.

Although the Minister had told journalists he was speaking off the record, the video, however, still made its way to the public and has since gone viral, drawing wide criticisms.

“The issue of whether, where he (Mr El-Zakzaky) is, at least let’s keep it off record, that he is in a residence and you know eating at the…” Mohammed said.

“It costs the government about N3.5 million every month to feed him.”

In a letter of apology addressed to the Minister of Information on Thursday, Oak TV said it made ‘some error’ for releasing the video.

It further said that “this is an error which we regret. All team members involved have been sanctioned, and we would do more to tighten our gate-keeping responsibilities.”

At N3.5 million monthly, it would mean the government claims it spends about N115,000 daily to feed the Shiite cleric while he might have cost the government at least N84 million since he was arrested over two years ago.

Mohammed’s claims of N3.5 million monthly also comes at a time the government is finding it difficult to pay a monthly minimum wage of N30,000 to workers.