Bring Back Our Girls campaigner, Aisha Yesufu, has called out online newspaper, The Peoples Gazette over a fake headline on Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Osinbajo who spoke on the National Social Cohesion Dialogue organized by the Africa Polling Institute, which held at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja on Thursday was, according to Aisha, deliberately misquoted by Gazette.
The Gazette in its report had, according to her, fabricated a headline that read “Nothing special about Nigerians being violently killed, hungry and unemployed”. The online soon realized that the headline was wrong after some citizens called them out.
An editor’s note was put out to explain that Gazette did not have adequate information about what transpired at the event which was organized to improve unity and patriotism in Nigeria. “Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect the accurate context of Mr Osinbajo’s full statement, which was not previously made available to The Gazette.”
In reaction to Gazette, Aisha Yesufu defended Vice President Osinbajo, stressing that, the Vice President always knows what to say at the right time to soothe nerves.
“This cannot be an Osinbajo statement. The one thing you can give Professor Yemi Osinbajo @ProfOsinbajo credit for is knowing what to say at the right time to soothe nerve. He might not do anything to change the situation but he will say what will soothe nerves,” she wrote on her Twitter page.
The Gazette, according to a statement from the VP’s office, “is notorious for spreading outright fake news or fabricating reports out of their own imagination to malign the character and personalities of certain persons they have an agenda against.”
The statement has it further: “Former Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu on 26 August 2021 sued the online newspaper.
In a letter titled “Libelous Publications Against Dr Ibe Emmanuel Kachikwu – Demand For Retraction and Compensation” his lawyer, Mike Ozekhome described the report titled “Ex-Minister Ibe Kachikwu Smuggled Exotic Car Stolen from Jaguar UK assembly to California: US Govt” as disparaging and libelous publication.”