TheCable

The presidency says there is a plot to launch a smear campaign against President Muhammadu Buhari.

In a statement on Friday, Femi Adesina, presidential spokesperson, said the people behind the plot intend to deploy the media in publishing several allegations against the president.

He also said some of the accusations in the publications will include allegations that Buhari is suppressing a particular religion or ethnic groups.

“There is compelling reason to alert the nation of another orchestrated smear campaign against President Muhammadu Buhari, using some online newspapers and blogs,” Adesina said.

“The campaign, scheduled to be launched anytime soon through editorials and purported special investigative stories, is designed to further exacerbate tension in the land, by portraying the President as pandering to ethnic and other primordial tendencies, contrary to his pledge to belong to all Nigerians.

“Impeccable security findings indicate that those behind the plot have procured online blogs and newspapers, which are to launch coordinated publications, alleging subjugation and suppression of a particular religion and ethnic groups. A specific medium has so far contacted some opinion leaders, especially those very critical of President Buhari.

“Part of the planned publication is to make unwary readers believe that the President has continually used the powers of his office to shield and protect an ethnic group against crimes of murder, kidnappings, rape and banditry in the southern, middle belt and some northern states.

“The publication will also refer Nigerians to a 58-page document, which chronicles purported atrocities of the ethnic group in the South since 2017, all of which it claims the Presidency has turned blind eyes to.

“Again, the hatchet job will allege that the President has continued to place members of his ethnic nationality in sensitive positions, so as to confer undue advantage on them. This allegation is by no means supported with reasonable facts and figures.”