Ebonyi state Governor, Engr. David Umahi, Wednesday, warned peddlers of fake news to desist from it as the state now has a law against such act.
The governor while reacting to the arrest and detention of a popular former Programme Presenter and social critic, Godffery Chikwere by the police, maintained that the era of people dishing out falsehood in any form to the members of the public was over.
Chikwere was arrested over the weekend by the police following a petition against him by the state government over a post on his social media handle which the government said was against the recently signed law against cybercrime.
He was to be arraigned before the court but he fell sick while in the police custody and was taking to the Emergency Unit of the Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki (AE-FUTHA) where he is receiving treatment.
But Umahi denied having a hand in the arrest of the Chikwere.
However, he hinted that the former state staff must face the law as he accused him of inciting the people of the state against the Army through his post on his facebook handle.
“I didn’t arrest Baby mouth, I didn’t arrest him. It is important to note now that we have a law on fake news. Both my journalists and aides should note that fake news coming from anybody is answerable and there is nothing wrong about this development. The federal government have their own, cybercrime and until we deploy this, our society will continue to go bad.
“You don’t just wake up and begin to tarnish people’s image. The young man is from Enugu and and they carried out the flag off of army activities in Enugu state and he didn’t comment on it. But when it was flagged off in Ebonyi, he now started to incite Ebonyi people against the army so that the army will now have confrontation with our people.
“It was done in Anambra, it was done in Enugu. Why is that it was done in Ebonyi and somebody from Enugu state who was hired to destroy the state will start commenting? People have been begging for his release but it is not in my hand, he must go to court. He must go to court, they can call me any name, I don’t care”, Umahi noted.