THE leadership of the People Democratic Movement (PDP) has faulted the cover story of Weekly Trust of Saturday, February 15th, 2014, in which it was reported that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who recently decamped from the PDP, has directed all his supporters to register with APC.
In a statement issued by the party and signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Ahmed Rufai Abubakar, PDM described the story with headline ‘Atiku collapses PDM into APC’ as “unprofessionally and mischievously planted by the editors in order to create the false impression that the former Vice President was at any point a member of PDM and that he is in a position to collapse the party into another one. This cannot be further from the truth,” the statement read.
Describing PDM as a political party registered under the law, which cannot collapse into another political party on the pages of newspapers or by the wish of editors, who have thrown professionalism overboard, Abubakar noted that the process of collapsing one political party into another one is well known under the law.
“The editors of Weekly Trust are advised to familiarize themselves with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) before going to press with the outlandish caption referred to above.”
According to the party’s spokesperson, PDM and its members nationwide are embarrassed by the story as it is totally false and appears to be a hatchet job.
“This is especially so considering that all the editors of Weekly Trust needed to do to verify their facts was to place a call to officers of PDM or officials of INEC before going to press. The Executive Chairman, the Managing Director and the Editor-in-Chief of Media Trust, owners of Weekly Trust and the National Chairman of PDM had cause to be under one roof for more than three hours on Thursday, February 13th, less than 48 hours before their paper went to press. There is absolutely no professional excuse for the paper to go to press with the story without hearing from PDM through our National Chairman,” he said. The part therefore urged the media, as the custodians of a sacred trust, to only report that which is true without sensationalism and bias.
“Reporting falsehood does not serve any purpose other than to undermine the credibility of the profession of journalism as a whole. We hope the editors of Weekly Trust will find it honorable to retract the story under reference and to apologise to PDM and its members nationwide,” the statement read.
Source: Guardian
