The Oyo State Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, has sued the Independent Communications Network Limited, publishers of PM News for the sum of N1 billion.
This was disclosed in a release issued by Festus Adedayo, the governor’s Special Adviser on Media.
The evening newspaper had on Tuesday published a piece entitled ‘Anxiety over Florence Ajimobi’s alleged arrest in UK’ , wherein it published a story purportedly written by an online agency named Newsleak, which alleged that the wife of the governor had been arrested in London for money laundering.
According to the release, the government of Oyo State had the responsibility to ensure that the media does not become an instrument in the hands of blackmailers for such acts.
“We want to state unequivocally that this report is not only wicked, it is the figment of the imagination of the writers. Mrs. Ajimobi was never arrested for any offence whatsoever. Even though our investigations have shown that this is the work of some arrowheads of the opposition, it was done in such an amateurish way that beats the imagination of any responsible reader,” the release said.
The government said that though it had a lot of respect for the media, there was the need to drag the runners of these media to court to explain the details of their reports to the rest of the world.