Former President Goodluck Jonathan had dissociated himself from giving the position on Niger Delta over agitations for Biafra.
In a statement signed by his media adviser, Mr. Ikechukwu Eze on Saturday, Jonathan also disowned an online publication which reported that he spoke on the relationship between the South East and Niger Delta.
In the report, Jonathan was said to have spoken on the position of Niger Delta over agitation for Biafra in a speech he was reported to have presented in Texas, United State.
The former president then said the report is fake, noting that there is no way he would have presented the purported speech as he neither traveled to the US nor sent anybody to represent him at the unnamed event.
Eze added that this was the second time in three years that Jonathan would be issuing a disclaimer on the purported reported speech. He blamed the situation on the efforts of some “unscrupulous people” to tarnish the image of the former president.
According to Eze, “Our attention has been drawn to a fake story with the title, ‘Why Niger Deltans don’t want to be part of Biafra’ currently circulating online and purported to have been taken from a speech allegedly presented by former President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan at an unnamed event in Texas, the United States.
“The story which is being recycled in some online platforms claimed that the former President allegedly spoke on the relationship between the people of the Niger Delta and South East states while addressing the broader issue of agitation for Biafra.
“We thought we had finally dealt with the issue of this falsehood with our time and well-publicized disclaimer, soon after the supposed speech first surfaced online in 2017. However, its beggars’ belief that the same jejune and disastrous effort at speech writing, hatched by some yet-to-be-identified shady character, is again being served to the social media public as a fresh dish.
“We want to clearly state, as we did in 2017, that there was no such event involving the former President and that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan will never present such a sloppy and hate-filled speech.”
