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Contrary to a media report that former Abia State Accountant-General, Chief Gerald N. Anyanwoke, was shot dead on Monday, the man is hale and hearty.
Contrary to a media report that former Abia State Accountant-General, Chief Gerald N. Anyanwoke, was shot dead on Monday, the man is hale and hearty.
Daily Champion, a national newspaper, had reported on Wednesday that the former accountant-general was shot dead in his London home by unknown gunmen and mischievously added that he was one of those listed to testify in the case the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) filed against former Abia State governor, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu.
The report said the purported "killing" of Chief Anyanwoke was a ploy to cover unnecessary evidence, which the EFCC would have used to prosecute Dr. Kalu.
Speaking with Daily Sun, a source in the Anyanwoke family said the former accountant general was not only alive but also hale and hearty. He said that the former career civil servant was never "ill, shot at or killed."
The family source said the report on the purported death of the former accountant-general was "a propaganda creation of anti-Kalu sources, who want to insinuate that the former governor inspired his murder with the intention to frustrate prosecution."
He revealed that the Anyanwoke family was embarrassed by the deliberate falsehood in the reports carried by Champion newspapers. According to him, the insinuation that Anyanwoke was supposed to testify in the case against Kalu was false, adding that the former accountant-general was "never listed as a witness in the case against Dr. Kalu and has never been told that he would be a witness."
Reacting to the Daily Champion report, Mr. Iyke Ekeoma, media adviser to Dr, Kalu said that the report on Chief Anyanwoke was an embellished falsehood.
Said he: "Part of the falsehood is that the former accountant-general is from Ohuhu. The man is from Azumiri in Abia State. He was a career civil servant, who worked with the former administrations of Col. Fasanya and Col. Obi as accountant-general. Dr. Kalu retained him when other governors were changing accountant-generals and using those pliable to them.
"Kalu left him believing that he was a career public servant and should serve out his career years. He retired normally in 2006. There is no basis whatsoever for Kalu to have hurt him. This exposed the extent to which anti-Kalu forces at federal and state levels can go to destroy and damage Kalu's name, using, unfortunately, a media that was supposed to be friendly. They must always remember that there is life after politics."
Daily Champion, which also reported, on the front page of its Wednesday edition that the Federal Government had taken over The Sun newspaper when it knew that it was false, had embellished the report on the ex-Abia State accountant-general with an alarm purportedly raised by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in Abia State in the April elections, Chief Onyema Ugochukwu.
The reported had quoted Ugochukwu as saying there was a threat on his life and that of his aides.