Buhari: I Did Not Make Anti-Igbo Sentiment

 President Muhammadu Buhari

• NBC rattled by continuing Radio Biafra broadcast

By Tobi Soniyi  and Adebiyi Adedapo in Abuja


President Muhammadu Buhari has called on Nigerians to disregard claim by a pirate radio station that he expressed anti-Igbo sentiments in a recent interview with the BBC Hausa Service.

A statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu said the claim was completely false, malicious and slanderous.

The statement said: “The voice being ascribed to  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 presidency said 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,” Shehu said.

According to him, 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.

He also said the BBC Hausa Service Editor, Mr. Mansor Liman, had distanced the BBC from the false interview clip being ascribed by the pirate radio station to 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 proaganda designed to sow seeds of discord among them and promote a separatist agenda against national unity, solidarity and progress,” the statement added.

Meanwhile, there is palpable tension among officials of National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) as the commission could not explain yesterday, the continuing broadcast of the pirate station ‘Radio Biafra’.

Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Information, Mrs. Folashade Yemi-Esan, had told journalists that the signals of the pirate station had been blocked after her meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, last Tuesday in Abuja. 

It however emerged in the NBC only successfully interrupted about two frequencies hitherto operated by the pirate station in Enugu and Owerri.

A senior director within the commission explained that operations of the pirate radio could not be traced to one location, adding that the radio station had consistently changed its frequency, after the initial frequency bands were jammed.

When pointedly asked that the permanent secretary had said the station had been blocked, the director said NBC was working hard to unravel the mystery.

“At the moment, we don’t even know what is happening, as at the time the permanent secretary made that statement, we knew what was on ground, but now we don’t.”

According to the director, the mode of operation of ‘Radio Biafra’ is similar to the operational mode of  ‘Radio Kudirat’, a pirate radio station operated  during the campaign to actualise the mandate of the acclaimed winner of June 12, 1993, presidential election,  late Chief M.K.O Abiola.

“Pirates will not wait for you to come and pin them down, they have been traced to Enugu and Owerri, and the frequencies jammed. They seem to have relocated and found another temporary base.

“What the permanent secretary said was not wrong, but this is how pirates operate, it is similar to our experience with ‘Radio Kudirat,’ if you remember, we believe that government will act fast and pin down the pirates,”he said.

From: http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/buhari-i-did-not-make-anti-igbo-sentiment/214726/