Steve Agbota
AgroNigeria has condemned the corruption allegation levelled against the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agriculture Landing (NIRSAL) and its activities.
Speaking at a press conference in Lagos against the backdrop of a virtual media report accusing the management of NIRSAL of corruption, the Managing Director of AgroNigeria, Mr Richard-Mark Mbaram, said investigations carried out shows that none of the said allegations, including withholding of N1 billion intervention fund was true.
He said AgroNigeria deliberately carried out the investigation because it owed Nigeria’s economy and the agriculture sector a duty to guide and challenge what was wrong and with negative intent to mislead Nigerians.
He added: “Over the past week, a malicious and defamatory publication targeting NIRSAL and its Chief Executive Officer, Mr Abdulhameed Aliyu, has been circulating in the virtual media space. It is pertinent to state that no objective reader of the said story will be left in doubt as to the grave nature of the allegations therein contained.
In consideration of the fact, that the subject of these allegations, NIRSAL, is an apex actor in the Nigerian agricultural sector. One, which AgroNigeria has systematically followed from inception, the Editorial Board decided to subject the publication to an in-house investigation. The findings from this investigation points to the fact that a deliberate campaign of calumny is being waged against NIRSAL by persons who have sinister, self-serving motives and have had their operations circumscribed by NIRSAL, in the course of the latter’s execution of its mandate.”
He hinted that the carrier of the said publication were faceless as there was no tracable address to the online firm.
“To begin with, the main purveyor of the allegations: “Per Second News” is a faceless online medium with no traceable address.
It is trite that the ethical code of the Media Profession and the extant laws of the country make it unacceptable to re-broadcast unverified and injurious allegations,” he said.
“However, AgroNigeria, in its role as the ‘Voice of the Nigerian Agricultural Sector’ has investigated these allegations and found them to be baseless.”