Dikwa: Retract Malicious Publication, tender apology —Group tells People Gazette
The Centre for Accountability and Good Governance has requested that People Gazette withdraw a defamatory article it published regarding Dr. Mohammed Kyari Dikwa, the former acting Accountant General.
The Centre referred to the publication as a Machiavellian tactic to gain political importance in a statement released on Monday and signed by Olamide Ade Badmus, the center’s Secretary General.
Read Also: Disregard Malicious Publication Against Dikwa, Group Urges Nigerians
“Our attention has been drawn to a malicious publication by an online news media vilifying Dr. Mohammed Kyari Dikwa, mni, one of Nigeria’s most outstanding public servants.
“We want the public to know that all the allegations raised in the said publication against Dr. Dikwa by the online media, accusing Dr. Dikwa of conniving with a female staff of NDIC to hide and launder money in an apartment in Apo District, are totally false and malicious.
“This report of calumny by the online media claimed that the alleged criminal act took place in 2020, but the online media and their sponsors chose to ignore it until 2023, relying on unsubstantiated testimony from an unreliable driver of questionable character,” the statement read in part.
It further reads: “For the avoidance of doubt, we want to make it categorically clear that we have been interacting with Dr. Dikwa for years, and we can vouch for him; he is a man of impeccable character, and his clean and excellent track record in the Borno State and the Federal civil service has been consistent. There was never a time that the name of Dr. Dikwa, who retired as a permanent secretary, was mentioned in any case of corruption or official recklessness. “We hereby use this medium to caution those behind the malicious story to retract it with immediate effect. One doesn’t need to blackmail and tarnish the image of an individual simply because the individual poses a threat to his or her ambition.
“It is wrong to try people in the pages of newspapers for offenses they never committed simply because we do not like or hate them. This trend has to stop. “We call on Nigerians to disregard the story and see it as the handiwork of desperate politicians lobbying for appointment and using Machiavellian tactics to eliminate those who pose a threat to their ambitions.”
