By Uche Amunike
The All Progressives Congress Campaign Council (APCCC), has not only debunked the claim made by an online publication that the sum of N400 billion was recovered by men of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) during the raid of the home of its presidential front runner, Ashiwaju Bola Tinubu, they have also called for the arrest of the publisher of the false publication.
This occurred, shortly after the anti-graft agency confirmed that they never carried out any raid on the residence of the APC presidential candidate, how much more, recover any such amount of money.
The online platform claimed in their news report, that Bola Tinubu forfeited the said amount of money to officers of the commission when one of his underground homes was raided. This went viral on social media, but has however been debunked by the EFCC.
Speaking, through a tweet sent to the official media handle of the EFCC, spokesperson of the anti-graft agency, Wilson Uwujaren called on Nigerians to disregard the reports made by the online publication and consider it as fake.
In a statement signed by Bayo Onanuga, Director of the APC Campaign Council, he stated that they discovered that the ‘rogue website’ was intentionally set up to disseminate malicious and false information against Bola Tinubu.
He further said that the story lacked the simple ideals imbibed in valid news writing which involved stating the ‘why, when or how’ elements that ensured its credibility.
The former Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria went on to extol the EFCC for making the clarification that the news was fake as they did not carry out any raid on the residence of Bola Tinubu, by issuing an official statement to that effect.
His words: ‘We urge the authorities to fish out the people behind the site that is recklessly dishing out fake news before more damage is done to our polity. We want to warn Nigerians to be wary of every piece of news emanating from the site, and its social media handles.’
‘There will be many of such sites as some candidates become desperate to win at all costs, in fulfilment of some rogue and rigged opinion polls, shunning all decent norms and rules.’
‘The dubious website, in its fake story, claimed investigations are still ongoing as to which bank manager made such money available to Tinubu, it then admitted its own absurdity when it wrote that ‘the money recovered in Tinubu’s underground house’ is equivalent of ‘the entire money printed for the whole Nigeria’ by the CBN.’
‘So, if Tinubu alone has all the money printed by Godwin Emefiele’s CBN, how do you account for the billions distributed by the apex bank to all the banks, including operators of PoS? The site, which, on Twitter and Facebook, appears to have links with the Labour Party, went further, in another post, to claim that President Muhammadu had ordered the arrest of the bank manager that made the phantom money available to the APC candidate.’
