Journalist David Hundeyin has said he would no longer report about Nigeria, lamenting that the people are more interested in his private life than his work.
Mr Hundeyin stated this in a post on X on Monday, urging the national security adviser Nuhu Ribadu to stop trying to get him repatriated to Nigeria over his controversial reports.
The journalist, who has been away from Nigeria on asylum, wrote: “Even right now, Nuhu Ribadu’s NSA Office has been busy speaking to the authorities in Kenya, Ghana and the UK as recently as last week, while they continue to work on their obsession of bringing me to Abuja as a trophy for Emperor Bola Ahmed.
“And yet what is apparently important for public discussion is who I married or who I had sex with, plus some malaria hallucinations from a failed former journalist who never accomplished anything in his career. These are the things my people are discussing. Even at this late hour, we don’t know who our enemies are and who is on our side.
“This can only mean that my fundamental objective – to help uplift the consciousness of my people – has not had any success. Basically, I have failed. Whatever I’ve been doing is not working. I’ve spent nearly 6 years of my life on a project that hasn’t moved public consciousness forward one single inch from where I met it in 2019. I put myself into a lot of trouble along the way, but it didn’t really amount to much.
“So this is a message to @NuhuRibadu. You can leave me alone and stop talking to Ruto and Akufo-Addo about refouling me. I will not disturb you people anymore. I’ll focus on my Pan-African political commentary and news about the Sahel region, but I’m leaving the Nigerian space for you. I clearly overestimated both myself and my people. The mistake was mine.”
Meanwhile, on October 8, the Royal Courts of Justice, a UK court, ordered Hundeyin to pay BBC reporter Charles Northcott £95,000 (N202 million) after finding him guilty of libel.
In reaction, Hundeyin said on Sunday that he was not paying attention to the court ruling, describing it as a “default judgment”.
