Last week, a pro-Buhari website, Legit NG dishonestly and discreditably savaged my reputation with a hit piece that was a tissue of lies.
This website was a former employer of Tolu Ogunlesi, Muhammadu Buhari’s Special Assistant on Digital Media, who is known for underhand dealings against critics of his boss.
What is more, even though he is now a government agent, Legit NG still proudly displays his name on their profile.
So I was not surprised at their fallacious report. In any case, I contacted the medium and provided them with incontrovertible evidence that they lied and had libelled me.
Rather than do the honourable thing and retract the story and tender a public apology, the reporter in charge emailed me privately and admitted his error, apologised to me, and then incredibly begged me to delete my tweet calling out Legit NG as it was damaging their image.
I was taken aback. So this reporter, Rahman Abiola Toheeb, cares about his own image, and that of his medium, but not about my image?
Not done, the young man incredibly blamed Forbes Magazine for his goof, when he himself had admitted to me that he relied on information he found on Wikipedia to sully my reputation.
You can imagine that! Blaming Forbes, rather than his and Legit NG’s shoddy and unprofessional behaviour and lack of elementary and even rudimentary journalistic skill or ethics.
It is suspected that the journalist, Rahman Toheeb, was paid to do this hack job, although I do not have any physical evidence, except the circumstantial evidence that he admitted his error, apologised in private, yet has refused to retract the story or issue a public apology.
Well, my lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome SAN, is now handling the matter.
However, his behaviour, and that of his medium, Legit NG, leave me troubled about what has become of the media under Buhari.
With few exceptions, the media appears to have surrendered to the Buhari regime. This junta’s war against the press, which has seen them arrest and jail journalists, shut down media houses, and then threaten them with licence withdrawal and paid advert denial from Ministries, Department and Agencies of the Federal Government, is troubling.
There is the case of Agba Jalingo, and how he was illegally detained and brutalised for such a long period of time. There is the saga of Abubakar Idris, AKA, Dadiyata, a fierce critic of the Buhari administration (if you can call this junta an administration), who was body-snatched from his home by government agents, and has disappeared into thin air, never to be heard from by his friends and family for two years.
And then, there is the unique case of a formerly and staunchly pro-Buhari sycophant and political appointee, Salihu Yakassai, otherwise known as Dawisu, who could not stand his own hypocrisy any longer and lashed out at the regime he served after schoolchildren were abducted by so-called bandits for the umpteenth time.
He was picked up by Buhari’s Gestapo, released on bail, upon which he voted with his feet and fled the country for asylum abroad.
Quite amusingly, he tweeted the following on the day he fled the country,
“Japa….. Goodbye Naija! Alhamdulilah!”
I have devoted my life since 2015 to fighting for Nigerians and demanding good governance and freedom of the press from the tyrannical regime Buhari heads and it is sad that even as I do this, a member of the press can be used so dishonestly against me.
The fellow, Mr. Toheeb even wrote about his admiration of my intelligence and activism in his email to me, yet still brazenly lied against me. To what extent? What is his motivation? Is it money?
Incredibly, Mr. Toheeb even calls himself a “fact checker” and describes himself as a fact-checking fellow of an institute. That institute, Opportunities For Africa, must not be very thorough if it admits a provenly unreliable and manipulative fellow into its institute.
I have chosen to make an example of Mr. Toheeb and Legit NG, because the media onslaught against me by the Buhari administration is becoming an avalanche, and if nothing is done to stem the tide, this misguided junta might achieve its purpose of distracting me.
And I am too focused to be distracted. Instead, I choose to use Mr. Toheeb and his employers, as a suitable example for maximum impact. I will now publish excerpts from Mr. Toheeb’s email to prove to the world that both he and his medium are liars, and that they are aware that they are liars, and that they lack the courage to own up to their lies:
They claimed I lied when I said that Aliko Dangote was listed by Forbes Magazine as the 25th richest man in the world.
I proved to them that it was indeed they who lied and that Forbes actually did list Mr. Dangote as the 25th richest man in the world in an article on June 1, 2013.
That article was also republished under different titles by Nigeria’s media, with Vanguard Newspapers using the headline “Forbes rates Aliko Dangote world’s 25th richest man” on June 3, 2013, two days after the Forbes article.
They also claimed that I lied when I said Aliko Dangote had lost 40% of his 2014 net worth by 2021. They claimed the figure was 28% (nitpicking to give me a bad name).
Well, Forbes listed Dangote’s net worth at ‘over $20 billion’ in 2013, and listed his worth as $12.5 billion in 2021. That means he lost just over 40% of his net worth.
Again, I was right and they were wrong.
Finally, they claimed I lied to say Forbes listed Aliko Dangote as 117th richest man in its 2021 ranking. Obviously, that was not a lie on my part. It was a mistake, because it was actually Bloomberg that rated him 117. His Forbes rating was actually worse. Much worse. It was 191.
When I brought these facts to the notice of Legit NG and Mr. Toheeb, they wrote back to me thus:
“While I admit my mistake, I will say the error was from Forbes which could have made the update and adjustment in the first article. I assure you I’ll write to Forbes on this.
Dangote lost “40%” of his net worth
If we were to calculate Dangote’s net worth with $16.1 billion as contained in the first article by Forbes, the loss wasn’t up to 40%.
This means the error totally came from Forbes for allowing the first article to stay without getting it updated.”
Then Mr. Toheeb also wrote about his admiration of my person, saying inter alia:
“If you check the piece very well, I extolled your confidence, considering the fact that you have been shaping discourses and seeing trending issues from the intellectual point of view — many of which I totally submit to.”
Let me end this piece by saying I have absolutely no need of Mr. Toheeb and Legit NG’s secret love and admiration for me because it goes against their public show of hatred and maligning of my character.
They are a thoroughly dishonest and manipulative bunch, and anybody who visits their platform is doing a great disservice to democracy in Nigeria.
Reno’s Nuggets
You say you lack capital to start a small business?
1. Cut your own hair
2. Make your own food
3. Launder your own clothes
4. Cut out cable TV (you won’t die!)
5. Quit smoking, drinking and clubbing
6. End any relationship that costs you money
7. Wear regular clothes instead of designers
8. Port to the least expensive data/call package
9. Trek to any location less than 5 miles instead of driving or Uber/taxi
10. Do not buy ANYTHING unless it is NECESSARY
Do this and you will have more than enough capital to start a small business in one year. But…,what if…,did you…, any statement beginning with these prefixes is just your indiscipline and unwillingness to sacrifice talking.
#RenosNuggets #FreeLeahSharibu
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