Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala hits back at fake news, vows to pursue legal action

The Director-General of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has announced her intention to pursue legal action against politicians who misuse her name for propaganda purposes.

This statement comes in response to a misleading blog post that falsely claimed she had criticized Governor Alex Otti of Abia State.

The erroneous report alleged that Okonjo-Iweala had accused Governor Otti of deceiving the state’s citizens through propaganda and expressed disappointment with his leadership. It also suggested she criticized Otti for allegedly focusing on critiquing the previous administration.

In her response, Okonjo-Iweala clarified that the report misrepresented her remarks, which were originally made during her presentation at the recent Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) Annual General Conference in Lagos.

On her X handle, on Sunday, she wrote, “I have taken screenshots of a fake article purported to be written by me about Abia State and its Gov HE Alex Otti that tries to fraudulently build on my recent speech on a Social Contract for Nigeria. Political hacks beware of using me for propaganda. I shall take action!”

Some part of the report read: “This government started off with a sort of State-sponsored, well-oiled propaganda machinery which was aimed at making sure that the inactions of the present government in some areas were blamed on the former government which they had just wrestled power from.

“Some of us are convinced beyond doubt that it was outrightly unnecessary as the task at hand was mainly about fixing the State and not to bore us with narratives of how the former government ran the State aground with their recklessness.

“Dr. Alex Otti and his team members must realize that they were not elected to give us excuses or tell us tales about the past government, they were recruited to solve the problems created by the previous governments.

“My suspicion of the Labour Party government in Abia State being more interested in distracting the masses than doing the real job of governance was confirmed when the newly elected government started casting everything done in the previous government in dark shades, making us have the notion that everything done by the previous government was bad and as such had to be scrapped.”