One of Nigeria’s notable television stations, Channels Television, is currently topping the trends table on Twitter Nigeria, albeit for the wrong reason.
Late yesterday, the station in one of its news reports, posted via its verified Twitter handle, credited the candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the February 25 presidential election, Peter Obi, with an appeal to the federal government to release the incarcerated leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.
Meanwhile, in the accompanying video of the report, it was renowned constitutional lawyer, Mike Ezekhome, and not Obi, who made the request. The station was to later delete the news item and issued an apology for the supposed mix-up after being inundated by a barrage of complaints by supporters of Obi, alias Obidients.
Curiously though, the station later deleted the apology for unknown reasons. The incident and turn of events have earned the station a bashing from many Nigerian Twitter users, especially the Obidients, who believe that the station’s initial action was deliberate and intended to tarnish Obi’s reputation. They accuse the station of being the media propaganda organ and mouthpiece of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and called it out for propagating fake news.
Read some of the reactions below:
What do you make of the incident and reactions?
