By Samuel Malik
The presidency has denied claims by Radio Biafra, an illegal radio station operating somewhere in the south eastern part of the country, that President Muhammadu Buhari recently expressed ant-Igbo views in an interview on BBC Hausa Service, describing it as “false, malicious and slanderous.”
According to presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, the voice in the said interview is not the President’s. He added that the President had not granted interview to the BBC since he was declared winner of the last presidential election.
“The last interview he had with the BBC Hausa Service, lasting not more than five minutes, was on the day he was declared winner and given his certificate of return as President-elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission,” Shehu said.
“Thankfully, the BBC Hausa Service Editor, Mr. Mansor Liman, has distanced the BBC from the false interview clip being ascribed by the pirate radio station to President Buhari.”
Shehu said President Buhari is president of every Nigerian and treats everybody “on the basis of fairness, equality and equity.” He also urged the public to disregard the broadcaster’s propaganda, which he said is aimed at fan the ember of disunity.
Radio Biafra, the propaganda organ of the Movement for Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, has recently gained the attention of the federal government with several broadcasts considered offensive against the new administration.
The station broke the story that the federal government transferred Boko Haram prisoners to the South east, a report that apparently embarrassed the government, while at the same gaining the attention of Nigerians.
The National Broadcasting Corporation, NBC, said it had jammed the radio station’s signal, but somehow, it has managed to continue to broadcast.