President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, has petitioned the Department of State Services (DSS) over a purported anti-North statement allegedly attributed to him and circulated on Facebook and other digital platforms.

In the petition signed by his Chief of Staff, Chinedu Akubueze, Akpabio urged the security agency to urgently investigate the creation and coordinated dissemination of what he described as a “manifestly false, inflammatory and dangerously divisive” statement.

The statement, contained in a graphic bearing Akpabio’s photograph and designation as President of the Senate, allegedly reads: “Northerners, You Will Be The Ones To Suffer The Most, If You Allow Tinubu To Lose The Election.”

The petition stated unequivocally that Akpabio “did not make this statement”, adding that no date, venue, speech, interview, video, audio recording, official statement or credible news report had been produced to authenticate the purported quotation.

It also alleged that the graphic carried no identifiable publisher’s mark or verifiable source and appeared to have been deliberately manufactured and presented as an authentic quotation.

According to the petition, the alleged fabrication was intended to deceive the public, provoke regional resentment against Akpabio and portray him as threatening the people of Northern Nigeria.

The petition said a preliminary examination of publicly accessible Facebook records identified some of the earliest traceable amplifiers of the graphic.

It listed Abdullai Musa, who allegedly posted the graphic in the Facebook group styled “Sheik Muhammad bin Uthman group 24”, and Uzoma Chilaka, whose Facebook post reproduced the graphic alongside commentary expressly credited to Boniface Uzoma Chilaka and Engineer Ibrahim Umar Ammar.

It added that a verified Facebook account belonging to Engineer Ibrahim Umar Ammar subsequently allegedly reproduced the graphic and substantially similar commentary.

The petition, however, stressed that the persons identified “should not be presumed guilty before investigation.”

It described their early and substantial roles in circulating the material as making them “material persons of interest” who may possess information capable of identifying the graphics designer, original uploader, sponsors, intermediaries and the network through which the material was distributed.

Akpabio consequently called for their publication records, devices and communications, as well as the provenance of the image, to be investigated in accordance with the law.