Sen. Uba Campaign Council Berates ‘Sahara Reporters’ Over Certificate Forgery Allegation
The Sen Andy Uba Campaign Council has called on publishers of Sahara Reporters, an online media outfit to work on their editorial approach before they lose their credibility and significance.
Sahara Reporters had made a publication in 2017 alleging that the West African Examination Council had confirmed that Sen. Uba obtained a forged certificate.
See: http://saharareporters.com/2017/03/31/waec-confirms-senator-andy-uba-forged-secondary-school-certificate
Uba is the All Progressives Congress in the Nov.6 governorship election in Anambra.
The Campaign Council, which dismissed the publication as fake news, wondered why the disinformation was still being recycled many years after it had been refuted.
The Council said it was an unsuccessful attempt to tarnish the good image of the APC candidate and misled his teeming supporter’s across the country as well as the Anambra voting public with the intention to weaken his victory prospects.
He said Uba had been subjected to screening sessions after the publication had been made and emerged successful and had also held exalted position with valid academic credentials.
“Like we earlier pointed out, the report is an old one, published on 31 March, 2017. Common sense should dictate that if there was any truth to the said Sahara Reporters’ publication, it would have been a basis for disqualifying our candidate at the party level from even contesting primaries.
“The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), would have been forced to raise objections, too, at some levels, but as it happened, Sen. Andy Uba did not only scaled through the party primaries, he has also been stamped with the seal of approval by INEC as the authentic candidate of his party.
“Sen. Uba is still waxing stronger and winning many more stakeholders in Anambra to his worthy course of rescuing the state from the pestilential hands of the ruling party.
“May we also add, like we earlier noted, that the platform on which the report was published is notoriously known for the worst form of cash and carry journalism. It’s a ‘pay-as-you-go’ kind of publishing portal, where what you pay its owner and rabble rouser determines what they publish.
“A detailed analysis of the said report equally bares it out as a poorly done hack job, those who are familiar with the basic rules of journalism would see that the report failed the basic test of balance and justification.
“No truth was established in the story on the claims made about Sen. Uba to warrant such horrid publication, no attempt was made by the online newspaper to get Sen. Andy Uba’s comment on the said allegation.
“As a result of the foregoing, we are forced to, again, sound the alarm to the general public on the need to be exceptionally wary at this time, going into 2023, of what they read, hear, see and believe on the internet,” the group said.
The Campaign Council Sen. Uba had instituted legal restitution for the malicious publication and was pressing a charge of N24 million as damages, noting that the author was dodging service.
“It is also interesting to note that Sen. Andy Uba has since been in court with the original author of the publication, where the senator is rightly seeking a restitution of N24 billion in damages.
“The author, as we know, is currently on the run, dodging service of suit by court officials, it is also curious that this allegation is being made to surface again.
“Finally, we advise Sahara Reporters and other reporters of fake news, to see the need in redeeming the dying investigative journalism in Nigeria, and the general public to guard their minds against fake news,” it concluded.
