By Ekuson Nw’Ogbunka in Abuja
A viral social media graphic accusing Senate President Godswill Akpabio of threatening Northerners over the 2027 election has triggered a security complaint, with the Senate President asking the Department of State Services (DSS) to track down those behind the publication.
The development was announced by Jackson Udom, Special Assistant to the President of the Senate on Media on Wednesday.
Akpabio, in a petition signed by his Chief of Staff, Chinedu Akubueze, Esq., described the widely circulated message as fabricated, inflammatory and dangerously divisive, insisting that he never made the statement attributed to him.
The graphic, which carries Akpabio’s photograph and official designation, quotes him as saying: “Northerners, You Will Be The Ones To Suffer The Most, If You Allow Tinubu To Lose The Election.” His office said there is no credible evidence to support the claim.
The petition argued that the absence of a date, venue, recording, official statement or credible news report authenticating the alleged remark strongly raises questions about its origin. It further alleged that the graphic appeared designed to create the impression that the Senate President was threatening or antagonising Northern Nigerians.
Attention was also drawn to the digital trail surrounding the graphic. The petition said preliminary checks of publicly accessible Facebook records identified Abdullai Musa and Uzoma Chilaka among the earliest traceable persons to have amplified the material, while another account associated with Engineer Ibrahim Umar Ammar subsequently reproduced it alongside substantially similar commentary.
Akpabio’s office, however, cautioned against treating the identified individuals as guilty, saying their early involvement merely makes them material persons of interest to investigators. It said their records could help security authorities establish who designed the graphic, who first uploaded it, whether sponsors were involved and how the material spread across digital platforms.
The Senate President is therefore asking the DSS to urgently investigate the alleged misinformation campaign, including the provenance of the image, publication records, communications and other available evidence.
Akpabio
