From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja

The All Progressives Congress (APC) Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), has raised the alarm of sinister moves by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to unleash a wave of fake news, especially in Hausa language to malign, defame and delegitimise its candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the party before Nigerians ahead of the next month’s presidential poll.

PCC, in a statement signed by Bayo Onanuga, Director, Media & Publicity, claimed that; “the scurrilous campaign by the PDP has already been perfected with a dedicated team working day and night from the PDP national headquarters in Abuja.”

They further stressed that the alarm has become necessary to; “advert the mind of Nigerians to this evil plan capable of causing disharmony, ill-will and needless crisis with attendant security implications in the country.”

“The party has also recruited many social media actors to carry out the campaign of calumny by proxy. We uncovered this evil plot targeted to manipulate Nigerians and most especially Northerners to see Bola Tinubu in bad light as the only way for PDP and its failing presidential campaign to have a chance at the February 25 presidential election,” the APC PCC alleged on the statement.

Explaining further, the ruling party campaign council noted that: “PDP and their hired social media influencers have already started pushing their nefarious contents by spoofing and using parody social media accounts of popular newspapers and blogs to disseminate fake news with the sole aim of hoodwinking gullible Nigerians.”

“Many parody social media accounts such as ‘Vanguard Hausa’, ‘DailyTrust Hausa’ have been created and also being used to circulate fake news on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and other digital platforms.

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“All these parody Facebook accounts were used by the PDP on Saturday to publish malicious fake news that trucks carrying old Naira notes, belonging to Tinubu were arrested in Lagos.

“Part of the PDP’s evil machinations will be to make false claims and allegations against President Muhammadu Buhari, Asiwaju Tinubu, his running mate, Kashim Shettima and other APC National, Regional, Zonal and State leaders in manipulated videos, doctored voice overs, photoshop images and other means all in a bid to win election by hook or crook,,” the statement read.

On the main motives behind the plot, the APC PCC noted that; “PDP and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, know they can’t win this coming election. They also know Nigerians will never vote for PDP to take over the leadership of Nigeria after inflicting 16 years of misery on Nigerians.

“The legacies the party left behind were insecurity, badly managed economy, looted treasury, derelict national infrastructure in roads, power, ports, rail, pipelines among many others. The Buhari administration is still struggling to unmake the massive damage done to our country by the party.

“Because Atiku’s PCC is heading to a crash, PDP futilely hopes to avoid the impending electoral defeat by sponsoring a coordinated fake news assault on APC, our presidential candidate and even against the government,” it claimed.

The PCC further added that; “we use this medium to urge Nigerians and most especially our compatriots in Northern Nigeria not to allow themselves to be deceived. Atiku and PDP have nothing good to offer Nigerians other than his rabid ambition to enrich himself, family members and cronies as revealed in audio and video leaks by Atiku’s former Media Aide, Mike Achimugu.

“The APC administration of President Buhari is working very hard to solve many of Nigeria’s decades-long problems across sectors and it is only another APC administration of Tinubu and Shettima that can continue, sustain and improve on the trajectory of good governance that began from 2015,” the PCC noted in the statement.