Story About My Appointment As EFCC Chairman Is Fake, Says Hakeem Odumosu

By Frank Oshanugor

A retired Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) Hakeem Odumosu who was widely reported in the media on Tuesday as having been appointed the substantive Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) has dismissed the story as fake news.

In a short statement sent to the media early on Wednesday, the one time Commissioner of Police in charge of Lagos State Police Command said “Good Morning everyone, I have been inundated with so many calls and messages between yesterday and today on a purported “EFCC Appointment”.,

I just want to use this opportunity to debunk this information and say it’s totally untrue.

“This information must have emanated from mischief makers and should be totally disregarded.”

With this rebuttal, it is expected that Nigeria’s increasing tribe of speculative journalists particularly of the online genre should be

more careful in rushing to the public space with unverified and unconfirmed stories particularly with respect to political appointments to avoid embarrassment.

Since the advent of the social media technology, online journalism has increasingly

become an all comers affair to the extent that age long tradition of ‘”truth is sacred” is no longer observable.

Every blogger has suddenly become a publisher with little or no knowledge of journalism ethics.

Matters are made worse by the inability of the regulatory bodies to differentiate the sheep from the goats in the journalism parlance, thereby allowing untrained practitioners to dominate the online media space.