Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State has denied encouraging Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, to leave the Peoples Democratic Party to contest the presidential election next year on the platform of All Progressives Congress.
Aliyu stated this while reacting to an online publication accusing him of doing so.
In a statement issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Israel Ebije, Aliyu, who was the self-styled leader of the now rested G-7 Governors, which included Amaechi, pointed out that the Rivers governor, who was alleged to have made the revelation, has since denied knowledge of the story and distanced himself from the online publication.
He, therefore, maintained that the publication, which claimed he and Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State, who was also of the G-7 Governors, had deceived Amaechi to leave the PDP for the opposition to pursue political ambition as Vice President in the next general election, was spurious, adding that it was aimed at misleading people.
He said, “Let me state clearly that Lamido and I never asked Amaechi to contest the 2015 presidential election with Tambuwal. Why should we be the ones to ask him to run for Vice President when he is capable of pursuing any career of his choice without our counsel?
“I believe those behind the publication have been hired to mislead Nigerians. They intend to engage in wrong claims purposely to satisfy the narrow interest of their paymasters”.
The governor frowned at the way and manner online media platforms have been taken over by mercantile reporters adding that they had veered off from the ethical practice associated with traditional journalism.
He, therefore, enjoined online journalists to desist from “rogue journalism”, advising them to imbibe the ethical requirement of verifying claims before circulating information made available to them by enemies of democracy.
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