Following recent news of the upbraiding he received at the hands of his superiors at the Leadership newspapers for
showing poor judgment in an unverified report filed by him, journalist Chuck Ohuegbe’s response was published by a couple of online publications that included the separatist republicreport.com and elombahreport.com, allegedly to refute the recent factual reportage of the event published by sharpedgenews.com.
Publisher of sharpedgenews.com, Mr. Oladimeji Abitogun, issued an immediate response on Wednesday, published as an open letter to Mr. Ohuegbe of Leadership, to correct the latter’s deliberate obfuscation of the facts concerning Mr. Abitogun.
His response is as follows:
Dear Chuks Ohuegbe,
You know that your interview with dissident elombahreports.com/RepublicReport.com is malicious, manipulative and outright defamation and slander. You are unrepentant and in your knack for pushing deceptive copies, and keeping bad companies. Where is your conscience?
I was shocked and at the same time not surprised that you would act like a man that has mortgaged his soul in letting a bare faced lies about the events you know nothing about or circumstances of leaving the Comet newspaper, Nigeria and pointblanknews.com.
Worse still, I ought to be surprised if you had chosen to keep mute in view of your immoral and unethical shameless promotion of fraudsters who have cheated Nigerians and the government of our country of birth, your feeble denial and rebuttal of reprimands from your company’s owners and editorial board notwithstanding, we do not tinker with facts of reports, allegations as they come to us, neither do we fabricate stuff against people.
You know me, Sir, very well, that in all the years that we practiced journalism together in Abuja, I never come to assignments in pursuits of filthy lucre like you and your corrupt NAPOC cohorts whom I would soon name.
The accusation we made was not that you did not work with Punch newspapers; the charge was that you had conflicts of interest in the line of your duty there. You never truly did Punch newspapers job whole heartedly and you actively promoted Abacha by associating with Daniel Kanu to share kua.
Your duplicitous ways was what got you beaten up and stripped naked by the National Assembly Press Corp because you were going around extorting money from law makers and politicians in their name. You know you can run but you cannot hide. You are a common prankster garbed as a journalist.
Here are the facts:
- I left Nigeria on medical evacuation to the United States contrary to your ignorant and fallacious fabrications, a naked manifestation of your open mediocrity and mockery of journalism profession which did not enable you to do your home work and due diligence before opening your mouth because you lack integrity. I have never been a sportswriter, so I did not travel with any female to the US. I was duly married to my wife, who was based in the United States as a volleyball athlete scholar for over a year before I was evacuated for critical medical attention.
- I did not leave pointblankews.com because of money. Jackson Ude, my good friend and brother would tell you that I am not a money grabber or money-loving journalist like you.
In all my years of practice as a journalist, my works speak for me. I was never sacked by The Comet/The Nation. The company supported me by paying my salaries in the first five years I spent in and out of hospitals getting treatment for my broken bones and legal blindness, the testimony of my injuries in line of duty as a reporter. Apparently, you are talking about another Oladimeji Abitogun, not me.
Arising from the forgoing, therefore, I give you twenty-four hours to remove those baseless fabrications about my person and my relationship with my former employers and colleagues, or you and your cohorts will face legal action. I was that you will have the courage of yoru conviction to push your lies through Leadership newspapers, but of course you don’t have the balls and nerves, so you opted for the protection of your dubious wayfarers, Carlisle Umunna, Carol Olubufunmi and Emeka Ugwonye.
Your fight is against Nigeria’s moral majority and you are bound to lose.
Oladimeji Abitogun.