Kenneth Arinze reply to Saharareporters.
We read with utter dismay your recent postings with the title above stated. It was a great shock to us as the entire content is not only spurious but malicious and libelous. It was simply a calculated and devious attempt to slander the person of Senator Andy Uba, (OFR). In your report, you made such an unbelievable attempt to defame the eminent judges that sat at the Anambara State National Assembly Election Tribunal by shockingly claiming that they were induced by Senator Andy Uba to tilt judgement in his favour. For this reason, according to your report, the Honorable president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami, dissolved the panel.
This is no doubt a robust lie and sheer figment of the writer’s imaginations as Justice Salami did not attribute the dissolution of the panel to a bribery question.
Your report claimed that some of the tribunal members were met at a hotel in Abuja where the purported bribe was delivered and went further to state that one of the judges was caught in the act. Yet you couldn’t name who gave him this bribe or how much he received.
There is no doubt that your publication was instigated by Senator Uba’s opponents with a diabolical intention to subject him to outrageous infamy and ridicule his palpable victory at the polls. But this will not in any way diminish his awesome popularity among the people of his senatorial district who trooped out enmass and voted overwhelmingly for him during the election.
Senator Uba has absolutely no reason to compromise the respectable jurists at the tribunal and certainly did not meet any of them at any place. That your Publication could not give the name of the person that gave this so called bribe or how much was given leaves the entire story porous and untenable.
Professionalism in your media art demands that you investigate story properly and get the two sides to every subject. In this case, you have only offered your organization as a platform for negative minded political adventurists whose sole ambition in politics seems to be simply to pull down or destroy Senator Andy Uba.
We will therefore advise you to be more thorough in your quest for sizzling stories so that whatever credibility you have left will not be completely eroded.
We will not bother, for now, to address the catalogue of defamatory tales you published in this singular story. At the appropriate time, we shall respond adequately to them.
Here is wishing you all the best even as we urge you to adhere yourselves to a more responsible and professional journalism. That way you can raise the profile of your organization and win the respect of serious minds and people within and outside Nigeria.
Kenneth Arinze Saturday, 13 August 2011 12:58
Media Assistant
To Senator Andy Uba
