The Secretariat of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) has dismissed allegations of corruption and fraud raised by its former Director of Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Abdulrazaque Bello Barkindo against the group.
The NGF, through a statement by its Director of Legal Services, described the allegation as baseless.
The statement read thus:
Our attention has been drawn to various social media posts and especially online publications, most recently in The Daily Trust online platform regarding certain inflammatory and misguided allegations and character assassination purportedly issued by our erstwhile Director of Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Abdulrazaque Bello Barkindo.
Though this supposed “breaking news” has been referred to our lawyers for their advice and necessary action on the defamatory nature and contents of the publications, we believe that we owe
the general public a responsibility to put the record straight in order to take the wind out of the sail of media sensationalism occasioned by the resignation of the erstwhile Director of Media and Public Affairs, Mr Abdulrazaque Bello Barkindo, who resigned his appointment with The Forum on the 7th of December, 2023 and whose resignation has been duly accepted by the Forum.
We assure the public, all our development partners and friends that there is no crisis whatsoever rocking the NGF or its Secretariat.
According to the publication, the reckless allegations made in the publication and credited to Mr Barkindo are already being investigated by the Police and also a subject matter of a suit pending before a court of law, hence as a law-abiding organization, we shall co-operate fully with the Police in their investigation and ensure the prosecution of any individual that is behind this unwarranted attack.
We want to assure our concerned friends and development partners who have been waiting anxiously for our comments, that there is no substance whatsoever in the allegations contained in the publication and that our refrain from joining issues is as a result of the need not to do or engage in any activity that may interfere with or prejudice the on-going investigation and court action instituted by Mr Barkindo.
We also want to use this medium to appeal to all well-meaning Media houses not to allow their platform to be used by disgruntled elements in the dissemination of falsehood as we shall not shy away from vigorously defending our reputation and goodwill.
We wish to reiterate that Mr. Abdulrazaque Bello Barkindo is no longer an employee of the NGF.
Anyone dealing with him on account of his employment at the NGF does so at his/her own risk.