The management of
Daar Communications, the owner of AIT Television, has distanced itself
from fake news from a fake Facebook page pretending to belong to AIT
which said that President Muhammadu Buhari had died in London over the
weekend.
DAAR, in a statement e-mailed to The Trent,
on Wednesday, January 24, 2017 blamed a faceless and mischievous group
for the report which it said was posted on a fake AIT Facebook account.
“The attention of the
Management of DAAR Communications Plc has been drawn to a FACEBOOK
Account purportedly being operated by our Organization,” the statement
said.
“A report was
published on the FACEBOOK that the incumbent President of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari, who is currently on
vacation in London has passed on.
“We wish to state the following facts:
“It is falsehood dressed up as truth that we opened such FACEBOOK Account.
“We did not publish nor know anything about the report.
“None of our Correspondents in London filed such report.”
The media house said
its editorial policy mandates its correspondents to file all their
reports for vetting and approval before publication which can only
originate from its headquarters.
It noted that no correspondent could individually on his or her own decision publish or cause to be published any story.
“The Facebook account
is the brain-child of a faceless and mischievous group whose despicable
activities must be investigated by security agencies because of the
unpleasant consequences.
“We wish to state that AIT runs an official on-line site for News which is not available for use by outsiders.
“We dissociate
ourselves completely from anything contained in the said report which is
a figment of the imagination of the authors.
“We also disown the so-called Facebook account, and have officially reported to Facebook managers.”
See a screen grab of the controversial post below:
Rumours about the health status of the president continue to swirl on cyber-space after a fake news website reported that Buhari had passed on.
The Nigerian presidency has debunked the rumour and said that the retired military general, 74, is “alive and well”.
“He is alive and well! President Buhari
is not magical. He cannot be holidaying in the UK and be in Germany,
dead or alive at the same time,” Garba Shehu, one of Buhari’s
spokespersons, said in a short post on his Facebook page.
The president left the country last week
on a 10-day leave and is expected back home on February 2, 2017. While
making the official announcement, presidential spokesperson, Femi
Adesina had assured that there is nothing to worry about the president’s
routine medical checkup while on his vacation.
The president himself also made it clear
that there is nothing wrong with going on vacation, just before
stepping into the presidential jet.
The rumours won’t go away. Wednesday morning, news began to circulate online that the president was on life-support at King’s College Hospital. According to the blogger who reported the story, his source is an inside source familiar with the situation.
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