Mohammed Bashir Shuwa, senior special assistant to Kashim Shettima, governor of Borno state, says TheCable’s undercover investigation on the sufferings of IDPs is a “misleading, vicious, malicious, cock and bull story”.
In November, ‘Fisayo Soyombo, multiple award-winning investigative journalist, spent eight days in Borno working undercover as a humanitarian agent, and succeeded in gaining access to public officials in charge of IDP-related matters — such as the State Emergence Management Agency (SEMA), the Civilian Joint Task Force, IDP camp officials, authentic humanitarian workers — and the IDPs themselves. TheCable published the findings on December 29, 2016.
But responding — 33 days after the story was published — Shuwa dismissed the investigation as a “hatchet assignment by a group or individuals who have rightly or wrongly an axe to grind with the state government”.
He accused TheCable of “doing anything Machiavellian not only to test the will of the administration, but undermine its integrity”, and of “going through unethical approach to cast aspersions or innuendos on the good intentions of Borno State government or any of its agencies thus bringing odium on the government, the agency or agencies concerned”.
“This is indeed the unholy mission or objective of the current story or so-called investigation of ‘The Cable’ in relation to the current happenings at the IDP camps in Borno State,” Shuwa added.
Shuwa also said it was “unfortunate that most of the pictures contained in his publication are cut and paste of over used pictures of victims who were already malnourished before their rescue by the military from the den of the insurgents and taken to IDP camps”.
However, only three of the 26 photos accompanying the story predated TheCable’s trip to the north-east.
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