Nigeria’s Senate President, Godswill Obot Akpabio, has petitioned the Department of State Services (DSS) to investigate the alleged fabrication and coordinated circulation of a false statement attributed to him on Facebook and other digital platforms.
Akpabio’s petition was contained in a letter signed by his Chief of Staff, Chinedu Akubueze, and addressed to the Director-General of the DSS on Wednesday.
The petition was titled: “Petition Requesting an Urgent Investigation into the Fabrication and Coordinated Dissemination of a False, Inflammatory and Potentially Destabilising Statement Attributed to the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio, GCON.”
According to the letter, a graphic carrying Akpabio’s photograph and official designation has been circulated online, attributing to him the statement: “Northerners, you will be the ones to suffer the most if you allow Tinubu to lose the election.”
The Senate President said he did not make the statement and described the graphic as fabricated, inflammatory and potentially capable of aggravating political and regional tensions in the country.
Akubueze, in the petition, said, “I respectfully petition the Department of State Services to investigate urgently the creation and coordinated dissemination on Facebook and other digital platforms of a manifestly false, inflammatory and dangerously divisive statement attributed to the President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio, GCON.”
He said the offending graphic bears the photograph and designation of the Senate President while falsely attributing the controversial statement to him.
“The President of the Senate did not make this statement,” the Chief of Staff stated.
He further noted that there was no evidence supporting the authenticity of the alleged quotation.
“No date, venue, speech, interview, video, audio recording, official statement or credible news report has been produced to authenticate it,” the petition stated.
According to Akubueze, the graphic also failed to identify any credible source or publisher.
“The graphic carries no identifiable publisher’s mark or verifiable source. It appears to have been deliberately manufactured and presented as an authentic quotation,” he said.
The Senate President’s office expressed concern that such material could be used to inflame regional sentiments and deepen political divisions in the country, particularly ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Akubueze warned that Nigeria had already suffered the consequences of inflammatory propaganda and should not allow fabricated political statements to become tools for provoking communities against one another.
“Nigeria has paid too high a price for incendiary propaganda to allow political actors or online influence networks to manufacture statements capable of setting one part of the country against another,” he said.
He urged the DSS to investigate those responsible for creating and circulating the graphic, stressing that allowing such conduct to go unchecked could encourage the weaponisation of disinformation for political purposes.
“If this conduct is ignored, political disinformation may become an accepted weapon through which malicious actors provoke communities, damage institutions and threaten national stability,” the petition warned.
The Senate President, therefore, requested an urgent investigation into the origin, creation and dissemination of the alleged fake document.
