The Rivers State Government has described false reports quoting Governor Nyesom Wike saying that the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, offered him a senatorial ticket.
The Government, in a statement by Wike’s Special Assistant, Media, Kelvin Ebiri, clarified that there was no time during the Governor’s media chat on Friday that he made such a statement. Ebiri wondered where some national dailies and online newspapers forged such a report in an interview that was aired live on four television stations. He said: “We wish to state emphatically that this news is false, baseless, and ludicrous as the Rivers State governor throughout the media chat never mentioned the name of the APC presidential candidate or alluded to him offering him a senatorial ticket. “To lay the facts bare, we have decided to include herein the transcript of what governor Wike said concerning senatorial form.
“‘First of all, this is how you know those who are prepared to run an election. Some of them collected presidential forms and at the same time collected senatorial forms. You’ll know that those people are not serious to run. ‘I never collected senatorial form. Even after the whole thing, people said come and go for Senate, I said no. I won’t do that. I’ve already committed that this Senate ticket should be zoned to this area (Etche) because they’ve never had it before. I must not be in power. Ebiri added: “In an era of the increasingly divisive political climate, the tendency to pervert the truth is extremely high. It is on this basis that we wish to remind journalists that journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.
“At this critical juncture in our nation, we wish to remind journalists that getting the facts right is the cardinal principle of journalism. Journalists are enjoined to always strive for accuracy and give all the relevant facts in their reports. “We, therefore, urged the unsuspecting public not to give any credence to these false, baseless, and ill-motivated reports.”
