Nigeria’s Senate President Akpabio petitions security service over alleged anti-North post
Nigeria’s Senate President Godswill Akpabio has petitioned the country’s State Security Service (SSS) over the circulation on social media of a statement attributed to him. A viral graphic post claimed that Akpabio allegedly said that residents of northern Nigeria would suffer the most if they allowed President Bola Tinubu to lose the 2027 presidential election.
Petition to the security service
The petition was reported in Abuja by Jackson Udom, the Senate President’s special assistant on media, Premium Times Nigeria reports. According to him, the document was signed by Akpabio’s chief of staff, Chinedu Akubueze.
The petition asked the SSS, also known as the Department of State Services, to urgently investigate the circulation of the statement, which Akpabio’s representatives described as false, inflammatory and divisive.
Position of Akpabio’s representatives
Udom said that the Senate President had not made the statement attributed to him. According to him, no date or place where it was allegedly made, speech, interview, video or audio recording, official statement, or credible media publication that could confirm it had been provided.
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He also noted that the graphic image featuring Akpabio’s photograph and title had no publisher’s mark or verifiable source. In Udom’s view, the image could have been deliberately fabricated and presented as a genuine quote to mislead the public, provoke regional resentment against Akpabio, and portray him as someone threatening the country’s northern residents.
People requested to be checked
According to Udom, a preliminary analysis of publicly available Facebook records identified several early distributors of the image. Among them, he named Abdullahi Musa, who posted the graphic in the Sheik Muhammad bin Uthman Group 24 group, as well as Uzoma Chilaka and Ibrahim Ammar, whose verified Facebook account shared the image and a similar comment.
Udom stressed that these individuals should not be considered guilty before an investigation. At the same time, he said that their early and active role in distributing the material could help identify the creator of the graphic, the first uploader, possible organizers, intermediaries and the distribution network.
