· Urges Govt to fish out culprits
The Imo state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has dissociated itself and denied involvement in the alleged dangerous fake news trending in media, conventional and new, captioned “Shocking Uzodinma Declares Free Marriage for Fulani settlers and Imo ladies” and urged the state government to go on manhunt for the creators of such propaganda and blackmail on the governor and bring such blackmailers to book in order to exonerate the PDP as a responsible party in opposition.
The party said that it feels strongly libeled, maligned and defamed by the insinuation from certain quarters that the bad press was the handiwork of the PDP and threatened to sue the person or persons found to be behind the malicious propanda and blackmail stunt against the person of Governor Uzodinma as same could be done to any other such public officer no matter his party.
In a public statement of denial issued and signed on Wednesday by the public Secretary of Imo PDP Ogubwndu Nwadike, the party charged appropriate security agencies to unravel, expose and bring to book the perpetrators of the cheap blackmail to serve as a deterrent to others.
The offending malicious publication had earlier been described as fake by the medium that first carried the story “This day news paper” said the story did not emanate from them.
The statement reads in part;”In fact, our Party proposes that just as This Day newspaper urged the relevant law enforcement agencies to unravel the culprits of the bad press and bring them to book, Imo PDP charges the appropriate security agencies to expose the orchestrators and perpetrators of that crime and bring them to justice.
This Party must, however, not fail to establish that the bad press characterizes the pedigree and antecedents of the Uzodinma regime, which has right from ab initio grown and cultured the art of orchestrating and perpetrating lies, falsehood, propaganda and blackmail stunts against PDP and even against itself to curry the sympathy of members of the public.
We will remind of how, in the earliest days of the Uzodinma regime, press releases from Hope New Media were repeatedly found to be fake news reports. It was such that even press releases that were supposedly signed by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor was promptly debunked by the same Chief Priest Secretary, creating confusion, disaffection and distrust among the people for whatever was dubbed “press release” from the Uzodimma regime, which adopted falsehood, propaganda and blackmail against Imo PDP, its leaders and members, as their primary assignment till date. That happens to fall into the period when the governor was reported to have offered to rename Imo State University as Mallam Abba Kyari University, and was under severe attacks with constructive criticisms for his bad leadership and bad governance of the State scorecard.
The Party notes that the latest, before the current “Fulani settlers and free marriage” propaganda and blackmail stunt, was the fake news that His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, CON, commended and applauded the rearrest of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). The Party and discerning members of the public concluded that it was an obvious diversionary plot by propagandists and hatchet writers that abound in the Uzodimma regime to divert and distract the attention of people from the embattled Governor Uzodinma, who at the time was posting very poor stewardship scorecard.
We provided links to prove that the post on the allegation against Ihedioha was posted by a social media user with the name Hope Uzodinma. We expected at least a denial by the governor and his aides, but none came, forcing us to conclude that the regime was behind the propaganda and blackmail.
Imo PDP feels that the current propaganda and blackmail stunt of “Uzodinma, Fulani settlers and free marriage”, coming at the peak of the recent very worrisome utterances by Governor Uzodinma on national television, coupled with the established failure of the State, smacks of a distraction created to divert the attention of people from the multiple, self-indicting false statements, and bad decisions and actions made by the governor, in which he swore that Imo State did not have an anti-open grazing law, and that the sit-at-home order was not being complied with by the people of the State; two claims which were false.
In addition to attacking itself to draw sympathy from the members of the public, there is this age-long hard-bent by the Uzodinma regime to castigate and ridicule PDP, with the aim of bringing the Party, its leaders and members to disrepute at all times. And one weapon with which they have repeatedly done that is by peddling falsehood, propaganda and blackmail against PDP.
Therefore, while the relevant authorities may go on manhunt for the person(s) responsible for the current propaganda and blackmail of Governor Uzodinma, we wish to exonerate our great Party from the action, which as we have already stated bears all the handprints of the propagandists that abound in the Uzodinma regime. We, therefore, await the final outcome of the investigations into the incident to officially acquit and discharge our Party from any indictment in the act blackmail.”
