Angered by the statement credited to him, former President Goodluck Jonathan, Saturday disowned the purported report saying he did not make any speech for or against Biafra. Disclosing this in a statement signed by his spokesperson, Ikechukwu Eze, Jonathan opined, “Our attention has been drawn to a fake story with the title, ‘Why Niger Deltans don’t want to be part of Biafra’ currently circulating online and purported to have been taken from a speech allegedly presented by former President Dr Goodluck Jonathan at an unnamed event in Texas, the United States.
“The story which is being recycled in some online platforms claimed that the former President allegedly spoke on the relationship between the people of the Niger Delta and South East states while addressing the broader issue of agitation for Biafra. “We thought we had finally dealt with the issue of this falsehood with our timely and well publicised disclaimer, soon after the supposed speech first surfaced online in 2017. However, it beggars belief that the same jejune and disastrous effort at speech writing, hatched by some yet-to-be-identified shady character, is again being served to the social media public as a fresh dish.
“We want to clearly state, as we did in 2017, that there was no such event involving the former President and that Dr Goodluck Jonathan will never present such a sloppy and hate-filled speech.