On Sat., I Called an Editor to Change the Headline of the Story Where Fuel Price Was N1,900–Onanuga

In an interview on TVC News, Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy, said he contacted a newspaper editor over a misleading headline claiming that petrol prices had risen to N1,900 when the report was actually about diesel.

Onanuga expressed concern about the spread of fake news, particularly when mainstream media organisations publish headlines that do not accurately reflect their reports.

Recounting the incident, he explained that he contacted the editor after seeing the headline and demanded that it be corrected to prevent readers from being misled.

He said, “I think on Saturday I had to call the editor of one of the papers in our country when a story came out that the fuel price has gone to N1,900. And I said, ‘Mr. Editor, your headline does not match the story. The story clearly was not talking about fuel price going to N1,900, but about diesel going to N1,900.’

“And he said, ‘Well, I’ll make correction.’ Then, the correction he made was not satisfactory. I said, ‘Look, you just wrote a corrigendum.’ I said, ‘No, you won’t write corrigendum. You will write corrigendum, but you have to write the headline. That headline you’ve made, you misled the public with. You have to correct and say it’s not petrol, it’s diesel that has gone to N1,900.’”

The presidential aide said the incident reflected a broader problem in media reporting, warning that misleading headlines could create unnecessary public anxiety. He urged journalists and editors to exercise greater responsibility in their editorial decisions and ensure that headlines accurately represent the stories they accompany.

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