Imo State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma has said he had neither made a statement on the outcome of the just ended Edo Governorship Election, nor issued a statement.
On Sunday, September 20, a statement, attributed to the office of his Chief Press Secretary/Media Adviser, Mr Oguwuike Nwachuku, had quoted the Governor as boasting that Governor Godwin Obaseki’s victory, will not stand, and that his party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, would win back the Governorship seat at the Election Tribunal.
The statement, which went viral, brought a deluge of condemnation against the Uzodinma, including from former Governor Rochas Okorocha who chided him.
But in a strongly worded statement, in which he describe the statement as a forgery, the Governor denied the viral statement, asking why he would do that, and calling those who put out the statement, “criminally minded”.
He also laughed at those who said he squandered the sum of N3bn, and $5m on the Edo Election calling them liars from the pit of hell
He, also, told them “Fake news can’t distract me.”
Following is the full text of the statement, signed by Mr Nwachuku.
“There is a fake report trending on the social media which claims that His Excellency, Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State, has rejected the recently announced Edo State governorship election result.
“There are yet others where the writers, in their imagination, are feeding the public with questionable amount of money the governor, allegedly, spent on the election in Edo.
“In one of the reports, it was claimed Governor Uzodimma spent N3billion, while a fake Reuters report claims that he spent $5million on Edo Governorship election.
“The writer of the fake Reuters report, one Stan Walden Newyork (obviously a fake name), claimed the money was squandered to appease the ruling party.
“No doubt, the authors of the fake reports are obviously the same characters we have always known who have been signing off press releases using the name and Office of the Chief Press Secretary/ Media Adviser to give their criminal, selfish and foolish intent some measure of credibility.
“The recent Edo State governorship election, like many others in the past involving Distinguished Senator Uzodimma, has provided them with yet another opportunity to feed the public with lies, lies and more lies, a vocation that seems to be their only known source of livelihood.
“In their desperation to discredit Governor Uzodimma on the outcome of the Edo governorship poll, they have cast innuendos; insinuating that he has rejected the outcome of the governorship election and that he had accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of being compromised, and that the All Progressive Congress (APC) will get judgment from the tribunal.
“Their insinuation also includes that the governor said that the entire process was marred by irregularities from INEC officials who, they claimed, sabotaged the system.
“Obviously relying on the position of Governor Uzodimma as the APC Deputy Chairman for the Edo Governorship Campaign Council, the criminal-minded writers of the irritating fake news did not stop at that. They had insinuated that the governor described the entire exercise as shameful.
“If the authors of the fake reports still have some brain in their head, something would have told them that since Governor Uzodimma is neither from Edo nor Chairman of the APC Media Campaign Council, the mischief they were primed to accomplish will not fly. Of course they don’t have sense.
“They were also so daft to know that the governor was not a candidate in the said election and would not have spoken on an election he was not a candidate.
“But they could not have advised themselves rightly because having been paid princely to discredit the Imo State governor, their sense of reasoning would automatically be blurred.
“The hallmark of credible news report is the voice the writer adds to it and Reuters could not have published a report that dwells on hearsay like the one many may have been deceived to think emanated from that respected news medium, but we know, did not.
“To also say that in the buffoonery, nay tomfoolery, of those who said Governor Uzodimma rejected the Edo governorship election result, they signed off with the name of the Chief Press Secretary/Media Adviser in a press release purportedly issued on September 19, 2020, but with a template that actually read May 20, 2020, tells a lot about their desperation to blackmail the governor and everything he stands for, using every opportunity at their disposal.
“We have always known, since the coming on board of this administration, about the existence of stuntmen who maintain templates with which they pull off stunts mainly fake news, thinking they will derail the 3-R mantra vision of Governor Uzodimma. That, to us, is mission impossible because the governor knows where he is headed with Imo people.
“Governor Uzodimma’s passion about taking Imo out of the woods, particularly from the grips of political hawks and merchants of blackmail whose umbilical chord seem tied to fake news and other negative tendencies that cause disaffection cannot be derailed.
“He has refused to be distracted, even with the fake news that members of the public are fed with from time to time, because he is quite aware of the reason for them.”
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