The Interview Editors
The presidency has again warned Nigerians of impending smear Campaign against the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration.
The president’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, said in statement on Wednesday that the masterminds of the campaign using some online newspapers and blogs.
“The campaign, scheduled to be launched anytime soon through editorials and purported special investigative stories, is designed to further exacerbate tension in the land, by portraying the President as pandering to ethnic and other primordial tendencies, contrary to his pledge to belong to all Nigerians.
“Impeccable security findings indicate that those behind the plot have procured online blogs and newspapers, which are to launch coordinated publications, alleging subjugation and suppression of a particular religion and ethnic groups,” he stated.
Adesina disclosed that already a specific medium has contacted some opinion leaders, especially those very critical of President Buhari as part of the smear project.
He added, “Part of the planned publication is to make unwary readers believe that the President has continually used the powers of his office to shield and protect an ethnic group against crimes of murder, kidnappings, rape and banditry in the southern, middle belt and some northern states.
“The publication will also refer Nigerians to a 58-page document, which chronicles purported atrocities of the ethnic group in the South since 2017, all of which it claims the Presidency has turned blind eyes to.
“Again, the hatchet job will allege that the President has continued to place members of his ethnic nationality in sensitive positions, so as to confer undue advantage on them. This allegation is by no means supported with reasonable facts and figures.”
He therefore urged Nigerians to be at alert and also wary of the machinations of such individuals.
“Those who are bent on stoking ethnic and religious unrest in the country remain deaf to reason, and impervious to reality. They are hell-bent on distorting reality, and Nigerians are urged to be wary of them. It is all about quest for power, and filthy lucre,” Adesina said.
