Former Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung has accused the Bola Tinubu administration of reacting defensively to criticism while celebrating praise, saying a government confident in its record “does not fear scrutiny.”

In a Facebook post on Sunday, Dalung contrasted the presidency’s response to recent comments by Pastor E.A. Adeboye and Cardinal John Onaiyekan.

“When Pastor E.A. Adeboye recently defended President Tinubu on insecurity, the Presidency and its supporters applauded him. There was no complaint that a man of God had entered politics,” Dalung said.

“But when Cardinal John Onaiyekan spoke about the concerns expressed by Catholic bishops on insecurity, poverty and governance, the conversation quickly shifted from the issues he raised to questioning his motives and even the denomination he represents.”

He described the pattern as “the hallmark of a government increasingly surrounded by ‘yes-men’”, adding: “To a ‘yes-man,’ every compliment is objective. Every criticism is political. Every supporter is patriotic. Every dissenter has an ulterior motive.”

The comment follows a July 28 meeting between President Bola Tinubu and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) and a subsequent interview granted by Cardinal Onaiyekan on Arise News.

In the interview first aired after the meeting, the Archbishop Emeritus of Abuja revealed details of the meeting with the president.

Onaiyekan said the bishops deliberately presented what they believed was the reality confronting Nigerians rather than offering the president a flattering account of the country’s situation.

The senior cleric noted that, judging by his reaction during the meeting, Tinubu appeared unhappy with the observations.

The presidency, through Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Temitope Ajayi, later accused Onaiyekan of “an abuse of clerical privilege” for discussing the private meeting publicly, arguing that President Tinubu had responded “point by point” to the bishops’ concerns.

Dalung said the issue was not whether Onaiyekan was right, but why “those in power seem more interested in discrediting those who raise concerns than in addressing the concerns themselves.”

He noted that Onaiyekan has spoken on governance, justice and insecurity under previous administrations, including those of Presidents Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari, describing it as “a long-established pattern rather than a sudden political awakening.”

“A government confident in its record does not fear scrutiny. It answers facts with facts. It does not reduce every inconvenient voice to partisan politics,” Dalung stated. “That is not strength.”

He added that religious leaders “are citizens before they are symbols” and have “every right to speak,” while citizens have “every right to disagree.”

“What we should resist is the temptation to measure the value of their words solely by whether they align with our politics. Because that’s not democracy but dictatorship,” the ex-minister stated.

Dalung has been a vocal critic of the Tinubu government in recent months.

He has accused the administration of lacking “political will” to tackle insecurity, describing security agencies as operating in silos, and saying the government is “more preoccupied with the 2027 general elections than with the lives of Nigerians being lost daily”.

He also assessed the president’s three-year record as “just blame game and rhetorics of reforms — reforms that no single iota of the benefit has trickled down”. (The Sun)