By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
As Nigerians grapple with the outcome of the massive protest against police brutality, presidential media aide, Femi Adesina, has denied a story that he prevailed on President Muhammadu Buhari not to disband the controversial Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) earlier.
The Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, eventually scrapped the police unit on Sunday, in a rare deference to the wishes of Nigerians.
In a statement titled, “Evil people ascribing fake stories to me,” Adesina decried what he called “tendentious publication” and pleaded with Nigerians to treat the story as a “lie from the pit of hell.”
Adesina wrote, “An online newspaper published by a so-called journalist notorious for fake stories has published that President Muhammadu Buhari was to have scrapped the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (FSARS) on Friday, but was prevailed upon by presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, not to do so.
“The tendentious publication claimed Adesina hinged his argument on the fact that “the administration should not surrender to Twitter warriors.”
“While the FSARS saga lasted, I did not say a word on it, whether publicly or privately. Why? It was not within my brief. It rested squarely with the Nigeria Police Force, which has its own spokesman.
“For the online publication to have cooked outright falsehood against me shows the riot that is going on in that space, in the name of journalism.
“The brain behind the blog had always twisted stories against me and his former employers would testify that I had officially reported him about twice, till I then declined to grant him interviews again.
“The publication should please be treated as what it is: lie from the pit of hell. A concoction, falsehood from a diseased mind, bent on causing disaffection against other people.”