By KEMI KASUMU
The media report on Monday that Lauretta Onochie was listed number two on her ward 4 register of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been dismised as nothing but a scam.
The report in an online newspaper (not The DEFENDER) was said to have been ostensibly orchestrated to discredit the person of the Onochie, whose nomination by President Muhammadu Buhari as National Comissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) last year has continued to pend in the Senate due to opposition by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senators and their sponsored agents.
In recent times, lawyers from different chambers and members of Nigerian women group had protested against the delayed confirmation of Onochie, with the women, whose protest was the latest, saying “Enough is Enough” and that they would resist any attempt by any individual or group of people to block her confirmation as INEC National Commissioner.
Our investigations showed that the report, specifically by GreenWhiteGreen online newspaper, is not only false but that names and signature on the list it claimed to have sighted were forged.
Among respondents to the purported APC Ward register listing the President’s Digital and Social Media Aide as number two in its membership were those who advised that, once and for all, somebody must be made to serve as a scapegoat, “per adventure those who are churning out falsehoods to justify their reason not to confirm her will finally learn their lessons.”
Particularly, one of them said: “I know Lauretta Onochie very well. I may not be her close or blood relation but names of the Ada Anioma have no ambiguity. If I were to be Lauretta Onochie, I can only advise that the GreenWhiteGreen online newspaper that published the forgery should meet me in court because we see her signature before and how what the medium published doesn’t tally with what we know necessitates that it explains to a court of law where it got its information.”
GreenWhiteGreen had said in its report titled, ‘Onochie Listed As Number 2 In APC Ward Register’, that “Ms Lauretta Onochie is number two on the All Progressives Congress, APC register in Ward 4 of Aniocha North Local Government Area, a copy of the register seen by GreenWhiteGreen GWG has revealed.”
In what our respondent described as premeditated position, the report said: “The revelation that her name is number two on the register of the APC in her ward is bound to further arm her critics that she should not be a member of the commission to superintend elections in the country.”
He noted further that the report was untrue because its claiming that nomination of Lauretta Onochie was dropped and returned to the President by the Senate means that even the writer and editor of the report had no clue of what happened but only picked what their sponsors wanted and dictated to them to push to the public.
Generally, all that have responded tod the report said it was nothing but still a branch of the PDP’s sponsored campaigns to smear both the Presidency of Muhammadu Buhari and the APC led Senate, noting that there is hardly any INEC nomination under PDP that was not from among its membership.
It was specifically mentioned that Senator Olarunnimbe Farukanmi, from Ondo Central, was once appointed INEC National Commissioner of INEC and as member of PDP just like mouths have wagged over PDP membership of the sitting Chairman of the electoral body.
They concluded that, if APC Federal Government has tolerated a PDP as INEC chairman, that the antagonistic PDP blockers will be unreasonable to push on with their oposition to Onochie, who is said to have qualified by all ramifications for the job of INEC National Commissioner, talkless that she is not an APC member but appointees of government serving the nation owned by all parties.
See the suspectedly forged APC Ward Register below:
