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False Publication: President instructs lawyers to sue newspaper
Nov 10, 2008, 08:48
| | Since the inception of the present Administration, its political opponents and their allies in the media have persistently assailed the nation with malicious rumours and outright falsehoods about President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s state of health.
Well after President Yar’Adua had personally addressed the so-called ambiguities about his health on national television, affirming that while, like all humankind, he was by no means immune to ill-health, but fit enough to lead Nigeria effectively; the political opposition and their cronies in the media have willfully refused to let the issue go.
The regular fare of baseless rumors, speculations and malevolent lies about the President’s health and its alleged effect on his ability to govern came to a head this morning when the Leadership newspaper published on its front-page, a manifestly false report titled: “YAR’ADUA SICK AGAIN”.
There is no truth in the entire report and the lies on which it hangs are so easy to disprove that the only reasonable conclusion is that the publishers of the newspapers ran the report in furtherance of their reprehensible efforts to embarrass the President and destabilize his Administration.
If it had any regard for the truth at all and made the least effort to confirm the veracity of the assertions in its report, Leadership newspaper would know that the claim that “Yar’Adua has not attended any public function in the last two days” is a big lie.
It is one of the creeds of the journalism profession that comment is free but facts are sacred. If Leadership subscribes to this creed at all, it would not have published a patently false report about the President’s “absence” from yesterday’s Jumma’at prayers at the National Mosque or from the ongoing Germany-Africa Forum at the Sheraton Hotel, Abuja.
The truth is that the President is in good health and has been attending to all his official duties in full view of the media in the past week. Yesterday, he participated in the International Investors Forum chaired by Baroness Lynda Chalker at the Banquet Hall of the State House before going to the National Mosque for Jummat prayers. He arrived at the Sheraton Hotel at about 3.30pm to receive President Horst Kohler of Germany and other Heads of State participating in the Germany-Africa Forum and was there until well after seven o’clock in the evening.
President Yar’Adua was at the Sheraton Hotel again this morning for today’s session of the Forum. All these events were covered by the media and President Yar’Adua will attend a State Banquet for participants in the Forum later this evening. This is hardly a schedule that could be kept by a man who “has fallen critically ill” as alleged by Leadership newspaper.
While President Yar’Adua fully believes that a free and unfettered press is essential to the growth and entrenchment of democracy in Nigeria, he is equally of the view that the propagation of spiteful and malicious falsehoods must not be allowed to become an acceptable weapon of political opposition in our country.
The President has graciously tolerated over twenty months of false rumours, speculations and innuendoes about his health, but the Leadership newspaper report of today crosses all acceptable lines of professional ethics, decency, decorum and respect for others’ rights and feelings.
There are laws against libel, defamation of character and publication of falsehoods in our statute books.
In keeping with his commitment to upholding the rule of law at all times, President Yar’Adua has directed his lawyers to take appropriate legal action against the Leadership newspaper and pursue the case to its logical conclusion.
Olusegun Adeniyi
Special Adviser to the President
(Media & Publicity)
November 8, 2008
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