Former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Bode George, says he never received N100m from the former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki.
Bode George said it was unfortunate that Sahara Reporters is trying to implicate him the $2.1bn arms purchase deal, which he was never involved in.
The PDP chieftain gave Sahara Reporters seven days to retract the report or face a libel lawsuit.
In a statement titled: ‘Hack writers and the contempt for truth’, which was released on Wednesday, George said he only met Dasuki ‘once or twice’ throughout his tenure as NSA.
“I was a victim of this crass journalistic lynching last week when Sahara Reporters published a completely indecorous falsehood linking me to a phantom N100m allegedly doled out by retired Col. Sambo Dasuki. Without any attempt to balance the story or verify the veracity of its claim, the online medium brazenly pushed out a blatant lie in the name of journalism.
“Again, I hereby restate forcefully that I neither collected nor solicited one farthing from Dasuki or anybody else. Throughout his tenure as National Security Adviser, I never met Dasuki except once or twice when he came to brief members of the national caucus.”
“It is true that free speech and the rubric of liberty is the twin anchor of an enduring democracy. But no genuine democracy can be sustained on crude, licentious journalism wherein the outpost of the Internet is now a substitute for deliberate falsehood and inelegant manufactured tales churned out with active malice to destroy public figures.”
“Journalism is a great profession which must not be tarnished by touts and intemperate mercenaries who take criminal refuge on the Internet and turn it into a lynching platform against perceived enemies.
“Those who think that the distant outpost of the cyber world is a haven for criminal libel and gutter journalism are deceiving themselves. The world is indeed a global village. The long arm of the law reaches everywhere. I intend to take recourse in the law court if the libel against my good name is not withdrawn with a published apology within the next seven days.”
