For the second time in one month, the Presidency on Friday cried out over alleged orchestrated smear campaign against President Muhammadu Buhari with the aid of some online newspapers (not FirstNews Online) and blogs.
Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, stated this in a statement titled “Unrelenting plot to wage smear campaign against President Buhari.”
This is the second time in one month that Adesina will be issuing statements alleging plan to smear the image of the President and portray him as not being in charge of the affairs of the government.
He had claimed then that an online platform had been procured to launch a campaign of calumny against Buhari with heavy monetary inducement while an offshore medium had been hired for the assignment.
Just as he alleged in his December 2020 statement, Adesina claimed in the latest statement that the planned campaign of calumny against the President is scheduled to be launched anytime soon through editorials and “purported special investigative stories.”
Adesina alleged that the plan was designed to heighten 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.
Adesina’s statement read, “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.
“A specific medium has so far contacted some opinion leaders, especially those very critical of President Buhari.
“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.”
The presidential spokesman recalled that Buhari had on Thursday, at a meeting with a delegation of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs led by Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, restated his even-handedness on the issues of ethnicity and religion.
Adesina further quoted Buhari as saying at the meeting that he would not allow religious prejudice or partisanship to influence any of his regime’s decisions and policies.
“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 the quest for power, and filthy lucre,” the presidential spokesman concluded.