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 declaration comes in response to a fabricated blog post that falsely claimed she criticized Abia State Governor, Alex Otti. The fake report alleged that Okonjo-Iweala accused Governor Otti of deceiving the state’s citizens through propaganda and expressed disappointment with his leadership style. It also falsely claimed that she criticized the governor for focusing on denouncing the previous administration.
In her reaction to the report, Okonjo-Iweala clarified that the statements attributed to her were a distortion of the paper she presented at the recent Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Annual General Conference in Lagos.
On Sunday, she addressed the issue on her X (formerly Twitter) account, stating, “I have taken screenshots of a fake article purportedly written by me about Abia State and its Governor, His Excellency Alex Otti. The article attempts to fraudulently build on my recent speech on a Social Contract for Nigeria. Political hacks should beware of using me for propaganda. I shall take action!”
The fabricated report falsely quoted her as saying, “This government began with a State-sponsored, well-oiled propaganda machinery aimed at blaming the inactions of the current administration on the former government, which they had recently ousted from power.
“Some of us are convinced beyond doubt that it was unnecessary, as the primary task was to fix the State, not to bore us with narratives of how the former government mismanaged it.
“Dr. Alex Otti and his team must realize that they were not elected to give excuses or recount the past government’s failures; they were chosen to solve the problems left behind.
“My suspicion that the Labour Party government in Abia State is more interested in distracting the public than in governing was confirmed when the newly elected government began to criticize everything done by the previous administration, creating the impression that all actions of the former government were bad and needed to be scrapped.”
