The All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council has debunked insinuations that the sum of N400 billion was recovered when operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission raided the home of its presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
This is even as the campaign council called for the arrest of the publishers for libel.
The APC PCC rebuttal is coming hours after the EFCC also denied carrying out the raid on the residence of the former Lagos State governor.
On Sunday, an online platform, Igbo Times Magazine, published the controversial report that about N400bn old notes were discovered by operatives of the EFCC after one of Tinubu’s underground homes was raided.
The news gained traction on social media before it was refuted by the anti-graft agency on Sunday.
Denying the reports in a tweet via its Twitter handle, the spokesperson for the commission, Wilson Uwujaren, urged Nigerians to disregard the report as fake news.
A statement signed by the Director of the PCC Media and Publicity, Bayo Onanuga, also noted that the campaign council had discovered that the rogue website was set up to disseminate false and malicious information concerning their principal.
Onanuga frowned at the story, which he said lacked the essential of “when, where and how” which make up the ingredients of any news story.
While applauding the EFCC for promptly dissociating itself from the fake story by issuing a formal statement on the purported raid by its men, the former managing director of the News Agency of Nigeria urged security agencies in the country to go after the website owners.
He said, “We urge the authorities to fish out the people behind the site, that is recklessly dishing out fake news, before more damage is done to our polity. We want to warn Nigerians to be wary of every piece of news emanating from the site, and its social media handles.”
