Senate President Godswill Akpabio has asked the Department of State Services (DSS) to investigate an alleged anti-north statement attributed to him and circulated on social media.
The petition to the DSS was written on behalf of the senate president by Chinedu Akubueze, his chief of staff.
According to the petition, Akubueze called for an urgent investigation into the creation and coordinated dissemination on Facebook and other digital platforms of what he described as a “manifestly false, inflammatory and dangerously divisive statement” attributed to Akpabio.
The alleged statement, circulated alongside Akpabio’s photograph and designation, reads: “Northerners, You Will Be the Ones to Suffer the Most, If You Allow Tinubu to Lose the Election”.
Akpabio’s chief of staff maintained that the senate president “did not make this statement”.
He said no date, venue, speech, interview, video, audio recording, official statement or credible news report had been produced to authenticate the alleged remark.
“The graphic carries no identifiable publisher’s mark or verifiable source,” the petition reads.
“It appears to have been deliberately manufactured and presented as an authentic quotation for the purpose of deceiving the public, provoking regional resentment against the President of the Senate and portraying him as threatening the people of Northern Nigeria.”
According to the petition, a preliminary examination of publicly accessible Facebook records identified some of the earliest traceable accounts that amplified the alleged fabricated graphic.
It listed Abdullai Musa, who reportedly posted the graphic in a Facebook group called Sheikh Muhammad bin Uthman Group 24, and Uzoma Chilaka, whose Facebook post reproduced the graphic alongside commentary credited to Boniface Uzoma Chilaka and Engineer Ibrahim Umar Ammar.
The petition said the individuals should not be presumed guilty before an investigation but described them as “material persons of interest” because of their alleged roles in circulating the material.
“Their publication records, device communications and the provenance of the image should, therefore, be investigated in accordance with the laws,” it said.
In the petition, Akubueze urged the DSS to investigate the source of the graphic and identify its designer, original uploader, sponsors, intermediaries and network through which it was distributed.
He said the investigation was necessary to establish the circumstances surrounding the creation and circulation of the alleged statement and prevent further dissemination of what he described as inflammatory content.