President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has threatened to
sue New York based online news media, Sahara
Reporters for what it described as an irresponsible,
deplorable, highly unprofessional and unethical antics
of outfit to assault the sensibilities of all decent
Nigerians over the president state of health.
This was contained in a statement signed by the
President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr
Reuben Abati on Saturday.
The president while thanking Nigerians for their
sympathies and solidarity as well as the mainstream
media for its catual, fair-minded and objective
reportage of the president’s indisposition said.
Below is the full statement:
President Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan thanks all patriotic and well-meaning
Nigerians, including his supporters, friends and
political associates who expressed and conveyed their
sympathies and solidarity with him, through various
means, following the announcement of his sudden
indisposition while on a mission to attract greater
investments to accelerate the growth of the Nigerian
economy in keeping with his agenda for national
transformation.
The Presidency also commends the generality of the
mainstream media whose coverage of the President’s
slight health challenge in London was mostly factual,
objective, fair-minded and supportive.
We however condemn the utterly irresponsible,
deplorable, highly unprofessional and unethical antics
of certain fringe elements operating in the nebulous
sphere of cyberspace who persist in seizing every
opportunity to unjustifiably malign and impugn the
character and integrity of the elected leader of their
country.
It is very regrettable indeed that after, in compliance
with President Jonathan’s standing instruction that
Nigerians must never be kept in the dark about the
state of his health, the public was duly informed that
the President had received precautionary medical
attention for an unexpected indisposition in London,
Sahara Reporters and some other reckless, lawless,
impudent and unpatriotic internet-based media chose
to assault the sensibilities of all decent Nigerians
again with their entirely fictional, malicious, hate-
driven and scurrilous distortion of the facts of the
President’s indisposition.
The suggestion by Sahara Reporters that President
Jonathan took ill following a “heavy birthday party
thrown to celebrate the President’s 56th birthday at
his Presidential suite in the InterContinental Hotel in
London” is fictional nonsense as there was definitely
no party in London to celebrate President Jonathan’s
birthday on Wednesday night.
The truth is that President Jonathan observed his
56th birthday anniversary quietly. For part of the day,
he was airborne, in transit between Abuja and
London. On arrival in London, he spent the rest of the
day in the privacy of his hotel room. It has never been
his custom to celebrate birthday anniversaries and no
exception was made this year. No birthday party was
therefore held for the President in London and there
was certainly no drinking spree as Sahara Reporters
claimed.
As unregulated as they are, Sahara Reporters and
their ilk are not beyond the bounds of legal action for
libel and willful defamation of the character and
reputation of a President who has courageously
stepped forward to serve his country.
They know very well that they can never substantiate
or prove the constant false allegations and innuendoes
they publish for the sole purpose of negatively
portraying President Jonathan and his administration.
Their incessant claim of a bibulous President is pure
fiction and blackmail, and the product of malicious
imagination. We warn that our forbearance of their
disrespectful caricaturing of the President is not
limitless.
The Presidency will like to reiterate the trite point that
no human being is beyond health challenges
irrespective of their station in life. Sadly, this
commonplace fact appears to be beyond the
understanding of the publishers of Sahara Reporters
who seem to have lost all sense of propriety, decency
and human compassion.
The President is comforted by the prayers, support
and overwhelming goodwill of the people of Nigeria,
fully assured that the forces of good will continue to
triumph over the forces of darkness in our land.
Reuben Abati
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