Nigeria: Again, Rivers Govt Alerts Public On Fake Video Clip On Wike

This is the second time in about six days the Rivers State Government is issuing such an alert.

The Rivers State Government has again alerted the public on a fake video clip being circulated on the Internet about Governor Nyesom Wike.

The Commissioner for Information in the state, Chris Finebone, in a statement on Sunday in Port Harcourt, called attention to an old clip which is presented as a fresh one to tarnish Mr Wike's image.

"This time, they took an old video clip of 26th February 2019 in which Col. Aminu Iliyasu, the then Deputy Director, Army Public Relations, 6 Division, Nigerian Army, Port Harcourt in which the officer raised spurious allegations against Gov. Wike following the faceoff between the governor and the Army over the governor's courageous resistance to the military that were bent on rigging the 2019 governorship election in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

"What these persons have done is to take that video clip, cut it out of context and circulate the same in the social media to portray the governor as someone who is planning to compromise the military for the forthcoming governorship election. Their insidious efforts are shameful, criminal and evil," Mr Finebone said, calling on the public to discountenance the clip.

The Rivers State Government, about six days ago, issued a similar alert about a "fake" audio clip which was circulated on the Internet against Mr Wike.

Mr Finebone said in the latest statement that "their main objective was to harvest the sympathy of a certain section of Rivers voters" before the just concluded presidential election.

"Secondly, after the shellacking, they got at last Saturday's presidential election, they angrily placed another fake news on the internet claiming that the governor's son in the US had been mortally harmed - a lie taken from the pit of hell since the governor has no child in the US," he added.

"Our preliminary investigation revealed that the scheme is the handiwork of opposition social media urchins. Their easiest style, so far, is to dig up old fake videos that have been discredited in the past, edit them and circulate the same as if they are true and current," the commissioner said.

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