The attention of the Honourable Commissioner for Lands and Water Resources Akwa Ibom State, Pastor Umo Eno, has been drawn to a spurious, fictitious, false and blackmail-laden story in Vanguard newspapers with the above caption. This story represents a new low in the morally repulsive industry of blackmail.
As the political season unfolds, certain desperate people will engage in disinformation and deliberate fabrications against those they may target, all with the intension of positioning their sponsors and taking undue advantage of the public in the process.
We are not unmindful of this; but what surprises in this case, is that these desperate fellows could discern so low as to plant such a fictitious story and attribute words they know never emanated nor were ever uttered by the individual they claimed made those assertions.
It is surprising though that a reputable news medium like Vanguard Newspaper could lend itself to the propagation of outright lies, utter fabrications, complete concoctions and downright inventions in the form of a news story, attributing imaginary spoken words to Pastor Eno and not crediting the story to any reporter with a bye-line. This is utterly embarrassing to the journalism profession and to an otherwise reputable news organisation like Vanguard newspapers. This is giving vent to the weaponisation of the media by desperate persons.
For the sake of the reading public, we wish to place on record that Pastor Eno is a man not given to speaking glibly. As a corporate and public sector-centric person, he understands the core principles of circumspection in human relations.
It is clear that the intension of the planters of the story in Vanguard newspapers was solely to impugn Pastor Eno’s character, tarnish his image, malign his reputation and destroy the goodwill he enjoys from Akwa Ibom people. The publication was deliberately structured to create bad blood between Pastor Eno and his colleagues in the State Exco and particularly to cause friction in the Governor’s family, by bringing his brother into the picture. This would not be the first time the same clique is treading this tendentious path. It has become their trade mark.
We therefore call on Vanguard newspapers to, as a matter of urgency, do the needful by retracting the very defamatory material.
While we appreciate the role of the media in the protection, preservation and growth of our democracy, we urge practitioners to do so within the ambit of reason, rationality, responsibility, good conscience and be very weary of desperate marketers and sneaky characters within the media who would not mind tar-brushing others in the process of selling their paymasters.
The general public is hereby, urged to ignore and discountenance the fabricated and malicious story. The story does not represent in character, content and context, the person of the Honourable Commissioner for Lands and Water Resources, Pastor Umo Eno.
Signed:
Tony Udoh
Media Assistant to The Honorable Commissioner.
January 25th, 2022.
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