President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, on Wednesday, petitioned the Directorate of State Services( DSS), over a purported anti North statement alleged to have been made by him.
A Letter of Petition to the security agency, signed by his Chief of Staff, Chinedu Akubueze Esq, Akpabio called on the agency to investigate urgently, the creation and coordinated dissemination on Facebook and other digital platforms of a manifestly false, inflammatory and dangerously divisive statement, attributed to the President of the Senate, Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency, Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio GCON.
According to the petition,” the offending graphic bears the photograph and designation of the President of the Senate and attributes the following words to him, ” Northerners, You Will Be The Ones To Suffer The Most, If You Allow Tinubu To Lose The Election “.
The statement stated unequivocally that the President of the Senate, “did not make this statement. No date, venue, speech, interview, video, audio recordings, official statement or credible news report has been produced to authenticate it.
” The graphic carries no identifiable publisher’s mark or verifiable source. It appears to have been deliberately manufactured and presented as an authentic quotation for the purpose of deceiving the public, provoking regional resentment against the President of the Senate and portraying him as threatening the people of Northern Nigeria.
” A preliminary examination of publicly accessible Facebook records identified the following persons as among the earliest presently traceable amplifiers of the fabricated graphic, (a) Abdullai Musa, who posted the graphic in the Facebook Group styled, Sheik Muhammad bin Uthman group 24″, (b) Uzoma Chilaka, whos Facebook post reproduced the graphic together with a commentary expressly credited to Boniface Uzoma Chilaka and Engineer Ibrahim Umar Ammar, a verified Facebook account that subsequently reproduced the graphic and substantially similar commentary.
“These persons, the petition noted, ” should not be presumed guilty before investigation. Nevertheless, their early and substantial roles in circulating the material makes them material persons of interest, who may possess information capable of identifying the graphics designer, original uploader, sponsors, intermediaries and the network through which it was distributed. Their publication records, devices communications and the provenance of the image should therefore, be investigated in accordance with the laws”.
