Buhari Dismisses “Radio Biafra’s” Claim Of Anti-Igbo Sentiment

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Radio Biafra

By Nuel Suji, Abuja.

President Muhammadu Buhari has described as “false, malicious and slanderous,” claims of disparaging remarks allegedly made by him in an interview on BBC.

The Radio Biafra, a ‘guerrilla station’ in its commentary accused Buhari of expressing anti-Igbo sentiments an interview with BBC Hausa service.

But Buhari in a statement by senior special assistant on media and publicity, Mr. Garba Shehu, said Wednesday that the claim is completely false, malicious and slanderous.

“No one should be deceived by the pirate radio station’s hate propaganda against the  president,” Shehu said in a statement, adding that the voice purported to be Presidents’ in the radio commentary is fake.

The statement explained that Buhari has not granted any interview with BBC Hausa service since his victory at the March poll, as claimed and could therefore not have made any such remark.

“President Buhari has not had any interview with the BBC’s Hausa Service since his assumption of office as alleged by the agents of disunity behind the pirate radio station’s inflammatory and divisive broadcasts.

“The last interview he had with the BBC Hausa Service, lasting not more than five minutes, was on the day he was declared winner and given his certificate of return as President-elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission,” the statement clarified.

According to the statement, the BBC Hausa Service Editor, Mansor Liman, has also dissociated the BBC from the interview clip “being ascribed by the pirate radio station to President Buhari.”

“President Buhari is the President of all Nigerians and will continue to treat all citizens on the basis of fairness, equality and equity.

“Nigerians should therefore ignore all propaganda designed to sow seeds of discord among them and promote a separatist agenda against national unity, solidarity and progress,” the statement added.

The Buhari government had been bothered by the wave of propaganda and sectional broadcast on the Radio Biafra.

Only yesterday, it announced that it had successfully jammed the radio frequency and put it out of airwave.

The permanent secretary of the Ministry of Information, Mrs. Yemi-Esan, had on Tuesday said the NBC, had jammed the radio’s frequency, describing it as illegal in the first place.

She spoke while briefing President Muhammadu Buhari on the activities of her ministry at the presidential villa.

In a tweet @radiobiafralive, the station announced that its terrestrial transmission remained live as well as its online radio.

It said in a tweet that used so much of unprintable words that “Radio Biafra is live in Biafra land: NBC woe to you and your lies: NBC lied to their master and gullible Nigerians …,

“They cannot even jam our local station. Do they even know we transmit both via satellite and online as well? … .”