Former President Goodluck Jonathan has debunked a statement credited to him on the position of Niger Delta over agitations for Biafra republic.
NewsOne Nigeria reports that an online publication had alleged that the former Nigerian leader spoke on the relationship between the South East and Niger Delta. The report said Jonathan spoke on the position of Niger Delta over agitations for Biafra in a speech he was said to have presented recently in Texas, United States.
However, reacting to the report in a statement on Saturday, Ikechukwu Eze, the spokesman of the former President, described the report as fake, adding that the said report was also published in 2017 to tarnish the image of Jonathan.
The former president spokesperson said Jonathan couldn’t have presented the purported speech because he neither travelled to the US nor sent anybody to represent him at the unnamed event.
His words: “Our attention has been drawn to a fake story with the title, ‘Why Niger Deltans don’t want to be part of Biafra’ currently circulating online and purported to have been taken from a speech allegedly presented by former President Dr Goodluck Jonathan at an unnamed event in Texas, the United States.
“The story which is being recycled in some online platforms claimed that the former President allegedly spoke on the relationship between the people of the Niger Delta and South-East states while addressing the broader issue of agitation for Biafra.
“We thought we had finally dealt with the issue of this falsehood with our timely and well-publicised disclaimer, soon after the supposed speech first surfaced online in 2017.
“However, it beggars belief that the same jejune and disastrous effort at speech writing, hatched by some yet-to-be-identified shady character, is again being served to the social media public as a fresh dish.”
“We want to clearly state, as we did in 2017, that there was no such event involving the former President and that Dr Goodluck Jonathan will never present such a sloppy and hate-filled speech,” Former President Goodluck Jonathan’s spokesman added.
