Radio Biafra, a pirate radio calling for the resurrection of the defunct Biafra Republic continues to be a source of concern for Nigeria’s Presidency.
Tuesday, the Federal Government said it has successfully jammed the frequency of the radio station and was on a hot chase for the sponsors. Same day, Radio Biafra issued a statement refuting the claims and declaring that it is still on air and that the government couldn’t stop its broadcasts.
Since then, Radio Biafra has put on constant replay, a clip, purportedly of President Muhammadu Buhari making anti-Igbo comments on the BBC Hausa Service.
The contents of the audio clip are extremely disturbing. Reportedly a voice of a man, speaking with a Northern Nigerian accent, expressed pride in the slaughter of Igbos during the Nigerian Civil War of the early 60s and says he would not hesitate to slaughter more Igbos if provoked. Radio Biafra claims that Muhammadu Buhari is the man in the recording.
So troubling is the clip, that the Presidency has issued a statement on the purported recording claiming that claims that President Buhari made such anti-Igbo comments on the BBC Hausa Service are lies, according to a statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu.
“The voice being ascribed to President Buhari in the recording repeatedly played back by the pirate radio station is definitely not the President’s and the claim that the station got the recording from a BBC interview is totally untrue,” the statement made available to the media on Wednesday, July 15, 2015 says.
According to Shehu, “The BBC Hausa Service Editor, Mr. Mansor Liman has distanced the BBC from the false interview clip being ascribed by the pirate radio station to President Buhari.”
The Presidency calls the Radio Biafra’s broadcast “completely false, malicious, and slanderous.”
The full statement can be read below:
The claim by a pirate radio station that President Muhammadu Buhari expressed anti-Igbo sentiments in a recent interview with the BBC Hausa Service is completely false, malicious and slanderous.
The voice being ascribed to President Buhari in the recording repeatedly played back by the pirate radio station is definitely not the President’s and the claim that the station got the recording from a BBC interview is totally untrue.
No one should be deceived by the pirate radio station’s hate propaganda against the President.
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.
Thankfully, the BBC Hausa Service Editor, Mr. Mansor Liman has distanced the BBC from the false 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.
GARBA SHEHU
Senior Special Assistant to the President,
(Media and Publicity)
July 15, 2015
