Okupe blasts Leadership Newspapers, opposition, over ‘Presidential Directive’

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe, has come hard on Leadership Newspapers over the publication of a ‘presidential directive’ by the paper. Mr. Okupe, at a press conference on Wednesday said “that the document published in the Newspaper alleging that the presidency has issued directives to frustrate merger of some political parties, hound opposition leaders and increase price of petroleum products is a forgery and an amateurish one for that matter.” The newspaper had published the story in its Wednesday edition with a copy of the ‘Presidential directive’ issuing the orders.
The presidential aide claimed the paper acted wrongly by publishing a ‘false’ document. “It is shameful that the LEADERSHIP newspaper will descend so low to publish an item which falls short of every standard official communication in form and content and attribute same to the highest office in the land,” he said. According to Mr. Okupe a close scrutiny of the document purportedly obtained from the presidency reveals that it is a forgery; saying that no Letter Head in the presidency has the caption “Presidential Directive” under the Coat of Arms.
He also said contrary to communication practice in the Presidency, the said “Directive” does not contain a recipient whether an individual, group or officials. Mr. Okupe added that the unsigned document is riddled with serious grammatical errors that could definitely not have emanated from the office of the President of Nigeria. “The body of the document contains a number of inconsistencies and incongruities which every discerning person should be able to pick out,” adding that “for example, items 5 and 6 in the 7- paragraph document does not contain any directive and are mere statements made by the dubious author.
“It is therefore amazing that the entire Editorial board of the LEADERSHIP Newspaper cannot or deliberately failed to see these incongruities, libelous distortions and other evidence of falsehood which they have published as a directive from the Presidency,” he said. Opposition parties are embarrassing
Mr. Okupe also came down hard on opposition political parties saying that “it is similarly embarrassing that the opposition political parties will jump at this cheap blackmail and try to incite members of the public based on a false, non-existent document”. He added that the action of the opposition leaders exposed them as ullible, undiscerning and lacking in capacity for deep thinking. “If people with dubious tactics and strategy are the calibre of people angling to govern Nigeria, then as a Nation we must intensify our prayers,” he said. Jonathan does not give a damn According to Mr. Okupe, President Jonathan is not in any way concerned with what happens with opposition parties.
“We have said it before and will say it again that the coming together of any political parties or associations is of no concern to President Goodluck Jonathan and the leadership of these groups should stop running helter-skelter when no one is chasing them neither should they seek for scapegoats in the Presidency for their own self-inflicted inadequacies “We wish to reiterate the need for journalists to uphold high ethical standards in reportage and commentaries. It is unfortunate that some Media practitioners are taking the liberal democratic atmosphere in the country for granted through a deliberate abuse of press freedom and the publication of false and malicious news items with the intent of causing confusion and ill feelings among the citizenry. This is irresponsible, unprofessional and definitely subversive,” Mr. Okupe added.