Lai Mohammed meets his “beggar bloggers” again

Information and culture minister Lai Mohammed is not done with online publishers. NewsroomNG was part of that meeting.

He had a closed door meeting with some of them late 2015. It was during that meeting he said President Muhammadu Buhari would make no attempt to gag the mainstream, or social, media.

Weeks after the meeting, an “anti social media” bill backed by All Progressives Congress (APC) senators emerged from the blues.

Lai Mohammed said he’ll be meeting with online publishers again this Friday.

“The meeting is aimed at bridging the information gap between the government and the people and carrying the stakeholders along in the formulation and implementation of policies,” he said in a statement made available to NewsroomNG on Wednesday.

READ: Lai Mohammed and his beggar bloggers

Before the Friday meeting, Mohammed will meet newspaper columnists on Thursday. He’ll also meet on air personalities (OAPs) on Saturday, and musicians from the six geo-political zones on Sunday.

“All the meetings will be held in Lagos,” the statement says.

It says further:

Since assuming office, Mohammed has met Civil Society Organisations and representatives of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), Nigerian Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) and Radio, Television, Theatre Workers Union (RATTAWU), among other stakeholders.

“Prominent” online publishers exempted from the December meeting were said to have expressed dissatisfaction at the move.

We gathered that some of them thought Mohammed shared money at the meeting.

Some people went online to label the publishers invited to that meeting mere “beggars bloggers” who participated for the money..