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 present 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.
